


A Job Lot of Junk

by sdwolfpup



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Drabble Collection, F/M, Multi, Tumblr Memes, before the relevant chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:14:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 38,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdwolfpup/pseuds/sdwolfpup
Summary: I keep answering fic memes over on my tumblr, ajoblotofjunk (taken from a quote from The 10th Kingdom, it's not intended as a self-own 😂), and I wanted to have them in a central place. These are for ones that are not related to my existing verses and are also standalone enough they're worth posting separately. Mostly Jaime/Brienne but any that aren't are noted as such. Each chapter has warnings included in the Author's Note as needed!First chapter is a table of contents with ficlet descriptions.Most recent addition: A dark post-season 8 fic where Jaime is still dead and Brienne is LC of Bran's Kingsguard and things go wrong.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Addam Marbrand/Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 818
Kudos: 498





	1. Table of Contents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a table of contents for the ficlets in this collection with more specifics so you can jump to what you want.

  1. This Table of Contents
  2. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, parachuting instructor Jaime and his best friend Brienne](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/55382284); no warnings; Brienne POV; rated G
  3. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, rival humanitarians at an award ceremony](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/55382404); no warnings; Brienne POV; rated G
  4. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, dance instructor partners on a cruise ship](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/55382440#workskin); no warnings; Jaime POV; rated T for mild language/sexual reference
  5. [Jaime/Addam/Brienne - modern AU, firefighters on "bro-cation" together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/55382482#workskin); no warnings; Jaime POV; rated T for mild language/sexual reference
  6. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, married parents setting up a birthday party for their daughter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/55382563#workskin); no warnings; Jaime POV; rated T for mild language
  7. [Jaime/Brienne - scifi AU, rebel human Jaime tracked by Terminator Brienne](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/55382794#workskin); no warnings; Jaime POV; rated G
  8. [Jaime/Brienne and hinted at Sansa/Tyrion - multiple modern, scifi, and canon AUs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/55383046#workskin) \- collection of answers to Fic Titles Meme; no warnings; multiple POVs; rated T for situations
  9. [Jaime/Brienne - scifi AU, Time Guard partners on a mission](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/55386121#workskin); no warnings; Brienne POV; rated T for mild language/sexual reference
  10. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, post-grad students antagonists to friends to lovers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/55409389#workskin); outsider POV; Catelyn Stark POV; rated G
  11. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, Jaime is a cop, Brienne is on a roadtrip with Margaery and he pulls them over](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/57874615#workskin); no warnings; Brienne POV; rated T for mild language/sexual reference
  12. [The War Between Us](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/57889276#workskin) \- Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, Jaime and Brienne are going through a divorce; warning for angst with ambiguous ending; Brienne POV; rated M for language/sexual reference and subject matter
  13. [Just Stand There Shining](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/57927712#workskin) \- Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, sequel to The War Between Us, Jaime and Brienne meet again years later and reconnect (happy ending); warning for twincest reference/abusive Cersei, extremely depressed Jaime in the beginning; Jaime POV; rated M for language/sexual reference and subject matter
  14. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, Brienne is a college student, Jaime is naked in her dorm room accidentally](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/58073428#workskin); no warnings; Brienne POV; rated T for language/sexual references
  15. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, Brienne is a reporter, Jaime is her editor, they go on an ill-advised caper](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/59682022); no warnings; Brienne POV; rated T for language/sexual references
  16. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, Jaime and Brienne arranged marriage where they don't know each other at all](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/59707285); no warnings; Jaime & Brienne POVs; rated G
  17. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, part 2 of the arranged marriage AU where they don't know each other at all](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/60908695); no warnings; Jaime & Brienne POVs; rated T for language/sexual references
  18. [Jaime/Brienne - multiple book canon and modern AU meme answers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/62252947); no warnings; multiple POV; rated hard T for language/sexual references
  19. [Jaime/Brienne & Hyle - book canon meme answer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/62498566); some angst/no direct Brienne/Hyle content; Jaime POV; rated G
  20. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, Brienne and Jaime fake date to a sex party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/62768245); Brienne POV; rated hard T for sexual references
  21. [Jaime/Brienne - multiple modern AU meme answers (including follow-ons to Go On and Petrichor)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/63728860); no warnings; multiple POV; rated hard T for language/sexual references
  22. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, Brienne and Jaime are dating and have a silly misunderstanding about ropes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/63729148); no warnings; Jaime POV; rated soft T for sexual references
  23. [Jaime/Brienne - book canon, Jaime and Brienne are injured and trapped by the Others](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/64092967); warnings for ambiguous ending & talk of character injury & potential death; Jaime POV; rated hard T for darkness
  24. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, Brienne and Jaime established relationship fluffiness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/64096132#workskin); no warnings; Jaime POV; rated a very light T
  25. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, Brienne is a boxer, Jaime is the ex-boxer who wants to coach her](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/64096342#workskin); no warnings; Brienne POV; rated T for mild boxing-related violence
  26. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU, Jaime and Brienne work in an office together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/64096447#workskin); no warnings; Brienne POV; rated T for mild language and office sexual politics
  27. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU; college students Jaime and Brienne meet at the beach](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/64096708#workskin); no warnings; Jaime POV; rated light T
  28. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU; Jaime and Brienne on a spaceship together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/64096834#workskin); no warnings; Brienne POV; rated T for mild sexual references
  29. [Jaime/Brienne - show canon; Brienne grieves Jaime post-season 8](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/64097002#workskin); warnings for talk of death, grief, mourning, depression, Jaime is really dead; rated M for subject matter
  30. [Jaime/Brienne - modern AU; they get a new cat as a follow-on to my fic Petrichor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/64711915); no warnings; Jaime & Brienne POVs; rated G
  31. [Brienne - post-show canon; Brienne is LC of Bran's Kingsguard as he slowly turns to evil](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/72030354); warnings for talk of death, madness, and an angsty ending; rated M for subject matter




	2. (J/B - parachuting) Jaime whispered comfortingly against the shell of her ear, “I’ve got you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by naomignome for the First Line Fic meme

Jaime whispered comfortingly against the shell of her ear, “I’ve got you.”

“That’s not going to help when we’re plummeting from fifteen thousand feet in the air,” Brienne said, staring out the open bay door that the other jumpers were waiting for the signal at.

She never should have let Jaime talk her into this.

“You’re sure you’ve done this before?” she asked him for what was probably the millionth time.

Her best friend - her literal savior right now as he was attached to her in a tandem parachute suit - laughed softly against her back. “This is my actual job. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get you up here.”

“Temporary insanity,” she assured him. The man at the door gave everybody a thumbs up and then the first of the four pairs in front of her slid on their butts to the open door and the huge expanse of sky and then, like it was nothing, tipped out of the airplane.

“Oh gods,” she moaned as the next pairing went.

“You’re perfectly safe,” Jaime said. He rubbed his hands down her arms and she leaned back into his solid weight for a moment to gather her courage. The third pairing went with a surprised whoop and then there was just Margaery strapped to Addam ahead of her and then her and Jaime.

Margaery took a moment to look back and gave Brienne two thumbs up. Brienne couldn’t unclench her hands from the fists they were in to return it and then Margaery was gone, too, hurtling towards the ground with nothing to save her but a flimsy piece of fabric.

“You don’t have to do this,” Jaime whispered in her ear, and Brienne shivered a little from the brush of his warm lips. They had been close in many ways for a couple of years, but never quite this close. “But I’ll never let you live it down if you do, you know that right?”

“I know,” she groaned They started scooting towards the end until her legs were hanging out into empty space along with what felt like her heart, stomach, and most of her intestines. “Jaime,” she gasped, trying to remember the pre-flight instructions they’d given her. “You promise we’ll be okay?”

Unexpectedly he bent his head and kissed her on the jaw, near her lips. That was new, and the surprise of it managed to push aside even her terror for a moment. “I would never let anything happen to you,” he promised against her cheek. “You’re my favorite person in the world.”

Brienne nodded a little. “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.” She promised herself if they survived this, she’d take some of this bravery and return that kiss and see where an even bigger risk could take her.


	3. (J/B - rival humanitarians) Margaery had been right, godsdamnit, and now it was too late to tell her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by unadulteratedkr for the First Line Fic meme

Margaery had been right, godsdamnit, and now it was too late to tell her.

Brienne was already up on stage and she was sweating under the spotlights in her long-sleeved dress. “Wear the strappy one,” Margaery had said immediately when presented with Brienne’s two choices. “You’ll be way too hot in the other. Plus it doesn’t show off your killer arms.”

“They’re only killer because I can actually kill someone with them,” Brienne had protested. She hadn’t ever killed anyone, but she was a black belt so she felt pretty certain she could if she needed to.

“That’s what makes them so sexy. Go strappy dress. Choose strappy dress!”

Brienne had not chosen the strappy dress. Now she was here as last year’s winner of King’s Landing University’s Humanitarian of the Year recipient to give the award to this year’s recipient, Jaime Lannister, and she was sweating and she was miserable. Not just because of the heat. Brienne had met Jaime Lannister at other fundraising events in the last couple of years and he was an insincere ass every time. The only reason they were giving him this award was because everyone felt sorry for the poor, handsome rich man who’d lost his hand on an ill-conceived backwater expedition for a photo op with some poverty-stricken northerners he’d donated money to.

She couldn’t exactly say that in her opening statement though, could she?

They’d given her highlights as a starting point and she’d stuck mostly to them in her speech: “Good evening everyone and welcome to KLU’s annual Fundraising Gala. My name is Brienne Tarth and I have the honor of being asked to present this year’s Humanitarian of the Year award.” She’d massaged that so it didn’t seem like she was honored to give it to Jaime. She wasn’t going to tell the whole truth, but she wasn’t going to lie, either.

“This year’s recipient has been to a lot of Westeros’ most poor areas, and he’s donated large sums of money to help them.” All true, and nothing too fawning. “He’s receiving the award tonight for his support of the Children of the Forest in their fight to bring their people out of the desperate situation they are in.” His ‘support’ being a sum of several million dragons and a photo op gone awry. “Please welcome tonight, Jaime Lannister.”

He strode out of the stage, smiling widely, waving with his left hand, although when he met her eyes, his green ones were sharp and knowing. Brienne stared him down through a handshake, and he stepped into her space and wrapped his residual arm around her to hug her, whispering in her ear, “I’ve never been praised with such severe damning before.” He let her go as quickly as he’d grabbed her, taken the plaque she’d been holding, and moved to the microphone.

“Thank you, everyone. And thank you especially to Brienne Tarth,” he said, his voice sly, “for taking time out of her busy schedule to introduce me so kindly tonight. Remind me, won’t you, Ms. Tarth, what you’re currently working on? I’m sure the former Humanitarian of the Year has kept busy.”

Brienne glared at him and considered using her killer arms in the way the gods intended: breaking his stupid neck. “I’m working on a plan to help low income students succeed.”

“Right, right. Is this related to the laptop scheme?”

“It wasn’t a scheme,” she hissed, though she knew that was what everyone thought. Humanitarian of the Year didn’t just come with a plaque, it came with a grant from KLU for a significant sum of money to spend on one charitable activity for the year. Brienne had decided to try to get laptops to poor students so they could do better in school. She had bought those laptops from Baratheon Computers, specifically Renly Baratheon, who had then been named Salesman of the Year, taken his money and bought a yacht, and then had been caught illegally fishing in protected waters with his boyfriend, Loras, and an absurd amount of drugs a few months later. The laptops, it turned out, were cheap refurbished ones that all failed within the year. Extra stock the company had been desperate to get rid of for ages.

Brienne of course had not intended for any of that to happen; she’d just wanted to help people. She’d thought Renly had been giving her a deal.

“Of course it wasn’t,” Jaime said now, so patronizing she wanted to shove the microphone down his throat. As she started to hedge off the stage, he gave a small, sharp shake of his head and his smile turned predatory. “In fact, I’m pleased to announce tonight I’ve already decided how I’m going to spend my KLU grant.”

There was a murmur from the crowd and Brienne had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“You and I, Ms. Tarth, will work together to bring your idea of technology to those students most in need. This time we’ll use companies that won’t inject the funds straight into their veins though, shall we?” There was a smattering of laughter from the audience. She wanted to high-kick all of them. “What do you say, Ms. Tarth? Care to be my partner for a year?”

It was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up; where else would she get the money to make things right? To genuinely help those kids who needed it? Not from any of the millionaires in town; she’d already asked every one. Except Jaime. Brienne glowered at his handsome face. “Sure,” she muttered, and Jaime smiled victoriously.

“Wonderful. I look forward to an eventful year,” he said and she dreaded that his words would come true.


	4. (J/B - dancing performance partners) Jaime buried his fingers deep in her hair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by slipsthrufingers for the First Line Fic meme

Jaime buried his fingers deep in her hair.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Giving them a show,” he whispered back, and he tipped her head back and slid his fingers down to her neck. On the downbeat, Jaime dipped her, holding her long body with one strong hand around the back of her neck. The audience applauded with more enthusiasm than they’d showed all night and Jaime grinned down at Brienne as the music crashed to a stop. She was trembling with the effort of keeping her legs straight and her weight balanced so he could pull off this move, and he imagined how easy it would be to lay her down here on the stage (slide his hand up her already short skirt, bury himself in her–)

Instead he smoothly lifted her back to standing. They turned to the cruise ship audience and bowed before Jaime led her off the stage for the next performers. 

“No more improvising,” she told him crossly, towering over him in her four-inch heels.

“It’s a competition. We’ve got to take chances.”

“It’s a fake competition we put on the same way every week for a new set of tourists.”

He waved his hand. “If we win tonight, you have to let me choreograph our next dance.”

“We’re not going to win,” Brienne said patiently. “You know Baelish is going to pick Sansa.”

“Then you agree to my bet?”

“Yes, Jaime, I agree to your pointless bet. What do I get when you lose?”

“If I lose, then we’ll go back to your boring routine.”

“Such a charmer. I can’t imagine why you no one else will partner with you.”

She couldn’t imagine because she had no idea that he’d threatened everybody else away from her. He just gave her a roguish grin. “You like dancing with me. I’m the only one strong enough to dip you.”

They’d been partners through enough of these seven-day cruises that she no longer took offense. Which was good, because he didn’t mean it in a bad way. He liked the way her weight felt against him.

“Your ego is certainly strong enough,” she said wryly.

It was worth the two hundred dragons he slipped to Baelish right before the winner announcement to see her blue eyes - bluer than the Summer Sea they were currently cruising in - turn to him in shock. He led her back to the stage for an encore performance, as the winner, usually Sansa, always did.

“Enjoy this, Tarth,” Jaime said as he created their waltzing frame with his body. “Next week we’re doing the tango.”


	5. (J/A/B - firefighters on vacation) Jaime never considered that he had a thing for freckles until Addam and Brienne were standing together in front of him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by sameboots for the First Line Fic meme.

Jaime never considered that he had a thing for freckles until Addam and Brienne were standing together in front of him. A sun-soaked vacation together - a “bro-vacation” as Brienne had laughingly called it - had been a mistake, he was realizing far too late to get a refund.

Chief Dayne had forced them to get out of King’s Landing after several grueling weeks fighting the front lines of what had been an out-of-control fire in the Kingswood. Brienne had suggested Winterfell to cool down. Addam had suggested anywhere in the Iron Islands to lose themselves in water. Jaime had talked them into Sunspear.

“There’s plenty of water in the Summer Sea,” he’d cajoled Addam.

“They have air conditioning in every room of this luxury resort - it’ll be my treat,” he’d promised Brienne.

Now Brienne was rubbing sunscreen onto Addam’s back and Jaime was having a very serious problem remembering this was not one of his endlessly horny dreams about one or both of his best friends. Those were Brienne’s real, strong fingers digging into the line of Addam’s shoulder. That was Addam’s actual throat making that low hum of pleasure. And this was definitely Jaime’s dick getting more interested by the second.


	6. (J/B - birthday party) He had a stapler in one hand and a rubber duck in the other, but despite that he was not prepared for what she said when she arrived home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by slipsthrufingers for First Sentence Fic meme

He had a stapler in one hand and a rubber duck in the other, but despite that he was not prepared for what she said when she arrived home.

“They’re all out of fucking baboons!”

“This is a party for children, do they have the non-fucking kind?” he asked, not sure why she would need baboons when they were clearly having a duck-themed party for their daughter.

Brienne glared at him and pointed at the duck, saying, “She asked you for a duck party and me for a monkey party and I’m the only one whose going to fail.” 

“I have…so many questions,” he said, “starting with: why when she asked for a monkey party did you immediately go to baboons?”

“The Internet said they’re the world’s most popular monkey,” she muttered, embarrassed, until he laughed and kissed her nose.


	7. (J/B - Brienne as a Terminator) He stayed absolutely still as he heard the footsteps grow louder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Roccolinde for the First Sentence Fic meme

He stayed absolutely still as he heard the footsteps grow louder.

Whoever was following him was relentless, which meant it was probably one of Them, and he needed to keep moving but his ankle was swelling up out of his boot and even thinking about moving made him wince.

There was a pause in the footsteps, the soft scrape of a heavy boot on the dirt.

Jaime held his breath, willed himself into the shadows and prayed this one wasn’t as well-equipped as the newer models.

As had ever been true in his life, he wasn’t that lucky; his pursuer stopped right in front of him, tall and blonde and strong, with eyes so blue he knew she wasn’t human.

“Jaime Lannister,” the robot-that-looked-like-a-woman said, “come with me if you want to live.”


	8. Collected answers from the Fic Title Meme

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since these are short and just fic summaries and not actual stories, I've put all of them together.

**A Face in the Crowd** (requested by half-past-late)

Fic Summary:

Your soulmate works like this: the two of you meet, you stare into each other’s eyes, and when it all clicks, their face becomes the most beautiful one you’ve ever seen. True love, happily ever after, the whole shebang. Which is great, Brienne Tarth thinks, except most people don’t even want to chance looking at her face, especially since she got her cheek scar from rescuing that little girl from a flaming building. As a firefighter it was her job and even if it hadn’t been she would have done it anyway, but she really didn’t need to make her ugly face uglier.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because there are almost nine million people living in King’s Landing alone and the chance one of them would be her soulmate is so slim it’s not worth meeting people’s eyes and bearing the weight of their disgust and disdain all the time. If they would have even looked at her in the first place; who wants to risk that the ugly woman is their soulmate? She has her work and her crush on fellow firefighter Renly Baratheon, and the occasional night out drinking with some of her crew and that’s enough.

When on a call one night she rescues Jaime Lannister from his burning apartment, and when she looks down at his bleary-eyed face and sees he’s the most beautiful man she’s ever seen, but that’s not surprising, they call him that in the magazines all the time. Him and the cousin he seems suspiciously close to. Brienne’s glad she’s wearing her protective helmet and face mask, so she can spend a little extra time looking at him and he can just look at her eyes and not know what the rest of her looks like.

Jaime Lannister hates the way soulmates work because everyone stares at him all the time and he’s had more people believing he’s their soulmate than he has rooms in all of his large and empty homes. When a tall, broad firefighter rescues him from the luxury apartment his cousin Cersei “accidentally” set on fire in one of her jealous rages, he stares into their eyes and through the smoke inhalation-induced haze thinks this is the one.

A week later once he’s out of the hospital he shows up at the station to thank his savior and see if the man who saved him is actually his soulmate and what he thinks about that. Jaime discovers several things at once upon being introduced to Brienne Tarth: 1. the firefighter in question is definitely his soulmate, 2. he’s actually a she, and 3. just being soulmates doesn’t mean the other person likes you right away, too, and Brienne does not like him. She doesn’t even believe him, which he takes very personally. But he’s - finally, for real this time - estranged from his cousin-slash-ex-lover, he’s got too much money and too much free time, and he’s at least as stubborn as this giant wench. If he was put on this planet to show her soulmates are real then by the gods he’s going to do it.

What he did not expect was falling for-real in love with her in the process.

* * *

**Honor and Other Drugs** (requested by pretty--thief)

Fic summary: 

Jaime Lannister has a problem, a tall, blond, Brienne Tarth-shaped problem. She is spending her summer after graduating from university as a camp counselor at a camp for underprivileged kids, the last summer they have before they go off to their post-college lives. Jaime, while a little too drunk at their graduation after party agreed to help her when the boys’ counselor who was supposed to go bailed out. But even though Jaime assured her otherwise, he never actually went to camp as a kid, doesn’t know how to do anything useful, and is terrified of preteen children. But he made his friend - his very good friend - a promise and he’s not going to back out now. Not even when they put him in charge of building the first night welcoming campfire, or when she asks him to take the kids rowing, or when one of the boys wakes up in the middle of the night with a bad case of upset stomach. Not when backing out would mean his very very good friend Brienne would never speak to him again for lying in the first place.

Luckily for him, Brienne has her own problem, and it’s that she might be in love with her very annoying, very handsome, very attached best friend.

* * *

**two cold climes, come spring time (let me hear you say)** (requested by nossbean)

Fic summary: 

After war and winter, spring has come back to Westeros. Hand of the King, Jaime Lannister, has been instructed to find a wife in order to shore up Lannister support for the crown with an heir that can be trusted. The only woman Jaime wants is the one he left behind on Tarth to do his duty. The one, he discovers when he arrives on the island to ask her, that’s currently in the middle of a year long engagement to another man, a politically expedient match to strengthen Tarth’s standing.

When Brienne asks Jaime why he’s come he panics and says the King sent him to provide assistance getting Tarth back on its feet with the death of her father and the destruction caused by the Golden Company. The King agrees to let him stay three months, which may not be enough time to convince Brienne he still loves her, has always loved her, and she should take one last chance on him.

* * *

**Tyrion Lannister’s Day Off** (requested by samirant)

Fic summary: 

Tyrion Lannister has one job, and that’s to make sure the spaceship stays running. He hadn’t intended on being a ship engineer but he was too smart not to go to school and not smart enough to avoid his family’s pushing him into space engineering. His small size means he gets all of the really shit jobs, but no one knows the Lannister Family Cruiser, the Lion’s Roar, better than Tyrion.

This proves to be a problem and not a benefit when Jaime gives him a well earned day off and drops his little brother off at the nearest pleasure planet, where Tyrion gets kidnapped by angry Stark loyalists who want him to sabotage his family’s ship, or they’ll send Tyrion back home a head shorter.

When Sansa Stark, who Tyrion had saved from certain death once years ago, shows up to set him free to settle their debt, they’ve got to make it through the darkest parts of what should be paradise in order to get back to Tyrion’s rendezvous point with Jaime.

And then things start to go _really_ bad.

* * *

**like atonement for a bygone sin** (requested by Roccolinde)

Fic summary: 

Secret Service agent Brienne Tarth failed to protect the president she loved and admired, Renly Baratheon. Bodyguard Brienne Tarth swears not to let it happen again, even though there are days she can’t imagine giving her life for a Lannister, especially the pampered, bitter, sharp-tongued heir to the Lannister fortune, Jaime. When Jaime starts receiving threatening mail and a shadowy stalker follows him to all his usual haunts, Brienne draws the short straw of his retinue and is forced to spend his confinement to a remote home alone with him while the Kingsguard detectives find out who’s sending the threats. During their time alone they discover they’d both be willing to save each other, and when the stalker finds them they find out one of them might have to.


	9. (J/B - time guards) She’d dreamt many times about running away with him, but this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by wildlingoftarth for the First Line Fic meme

She’d dreamt many times about running away with him, but this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind.

Brienne had thought it would be slightly more metaphorical ‘running away’ - giving up their responsibilities as Temporal Guards and letting time guard itself from all the overzealous tourists for awhile. She thought they could find a quiet little island that hadn’t even heard of Temporal Displacement and lay on a beach in their swimsuits and not do anything more strenuous than kiss each other. Or more, perhaps, but they weren’t even dating, they were just partners and it felt wrong to fantasize about her partner that way, no matter how ridiculously attractive he was.

She wondered if he’d ever fantasized about her.

And then an arrow whizzed between them and she picked up her pace.

“What did you say to them?” she shouted as they ran full tilt for the displacement beacon to get them back to headquarters.

“Nothing!” he yelled back. They were both dressed in simple traveler’s clothes for the time period - Age of Heroes right after Robert’s Rebellion. “They just saw me and shouted Kingslayer!”

Brienne sighed and spared a glance back over her shoulder. They were outpacing the small band of Targaryen loyalists, but she saw one nock another arrow and send it flying and it thwocked into the ground at their feet. “Next time let me do the talking!”

“We’ll be lucky if there is a next time!” he shouted back. “Besides, who says they’d listen to you? You’re a woman!”

They were both starting to gasp for breath and she checked her chronocomm, saw the beacon was blessedly close. “Oh so you’ve finally noticed!” she yelled without really thinking about it and then they were 10 steps, seven, three, one from the beacon and she was slamming her hand down on the emergency return button and grabbing Jaime’s hand at the same time. There was the familiar feeling of her body being sucked inside out and re-arranged again and she and Jaime were deposited on a sterile white platform, where they both fell to their knees, gulping down air. Brienne wasn’t certain she’d brought all her lungs with her, they burned so much.

Jaime was on all fours when he lifted his head and glared at her. “What did you mean by that?” he snapped.

“By what?” The automatic medical scan was running over them now and she tried to hold still and hope her heart rate wasn’t dangerous enough to get quarantined in sickbay over.

“Of course I know you’re a woman!”

Brienne blinked at him. Maybe she’d left her brain behind, too. “Jaime what are you talking about?”

“You said I finally noticed you’re a woman. I noticed that the first day we were partnered together!” He seemed so indignant and for no good reason.

“You called me a beast, and then when I knocked you down in sparring you softened it to ‘Officer Beast.’”

“I don’t call you that anymore,” he grumbled and he was right, he didn’t. Now he called her Tarth mostly, although the last couple of weeks as they’d been preparing for this assignment he’d started calling her ‘wench.’ It was a good thing their Captain didn’t let them spar together anymore or she would have definitely knocked him on his ass for that.

The medical scan completed and the first set of lights went green. The decontamination scan started next.

“So you’ve always known I’m a woman. Fine. Who cares?” she sighed, tucking away her beach fantasy in the ‘never ever going to happen’ box that was already overflowing.

“I care,” he said and he scooted towards her on his knees. “Because sometimes it’s all I can think about.”

Brienne held very still and it wasn’t because of the decom scan. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Messing up the decom scan,” he whispered back, before he leaned forward to kiss her and an alarm started to sound.


	10. (J/B - post-grad students, Cat POV) She looked up from her cataloguing and wondered why in all seven hells those two didn’t just change their schedules if they hated each other that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by snowymary for the First Line Fic meme

She looked up from her cataloguing and wondered why in all seven hells those two didn’t just change their schedules if they hated each other that much.

Every day doctorate students Jaime Lannister and Brienne Tarth would come into Catelyn Stark’s library at the same time and cause havoc. Quiet havoc - generally, except for that one time - but havoc nonetheless. They didn’t have classes here during this two to three pm hour, they just had seemingly decided this was the only time either of them could devote to researching their similar but competing theses. So every day at two pm, Brienne entered first, gave Catelyn a wave, and would head to the back where the historical materials were. She would neatly pull out and stack what she needed and then place her pens and paper and laptop on the table, ready to engage in research.

And that’s when chaos would arrive in the form of Jaime Lannister. Catelyn had ceased to understand why Brienne even bothered to organize her things when Jaime inevitably would come swanning in, rifle through her books and grab one from the middle, leaving the others messily strewn about the table. Then he’d take one of Brienne’s pens, rip off a sheet of paper, and get to work.

Catelyn had often wondered why the man never carried his own book bag and supplies, but he had the sort of easy confidence in his own charm that suggested everything he needed in life just tended to appear. To be honest, she would have thought Brienne immune to that sort of manipulation, but she came back every day and never once denied Jaime the use of her materials.

Then, for an hour, the two of them would bicker in hushed whispers. Except that one time, two months ago, when there had been real yelling and Brienne had stormed off, wiping furiously at her cheeks. She’d come back the next day and Jaime hadn’t and Catelyn had thought that was the end of whatever nonsense was going on between the two of them. Catelyn had hovered near the table that afternoon, in case Brienne needed anything or wanted to share what had happened; Catelyn would never ask, it wasn’t her place, but she was awfully curious and hoped Brienne would need to offload. She did not. And for two weeks, it was just Brienne and Catelyn had grown to accept the new normal.

Then the third week, Jaime was back, floating in like he hadn’t left last time with the darkest, most upset look she’d ever seen on his face. No, he was all smiles again, and Brienne had even smiled at him and then fifteen minutes later they’d been whisper-arguing once more. Catelyn had just sighed and let them be.

She would have continued to let them be today, too, but this time they were unusually quiet. And Jaime was sitting on Brienne’s side of the table instead of across from her like normal. And she was biting her bottom lip and flushing quite red and he was leaning close and whispering something in her ear. Catelyn’s eyes went wide when Jaime kissed her on the cheek and Brienne smiled like she was all right with it. Then Brienne looked up and saw her watching and she elbowed Jaime hard in the chest, shoving him back and away from her. He laughed a little and turned back to his work.

_Well._

Catelyn finished her cataloguing and left them alone. She sincerely hoped she wouldn’t have to throw them both out for a different kind of noise disturbance later.


	11. (J/B - Cop/person getting a speeding ticket au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne and Margaery take a roadtrip and get pulled over by one Officer J. Lannister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Tropes Short Fic Meme, naomignome asked for #38, cop/person getting a speeding ticket au. This is silly nonsense and doesn't go anywhere, and also Ted Bundy exists in this Westeros I guess, idk.

It was a beautiful day, the King's Road was mostly empty, and they were finally far enough from their desolate research post up near Queenscrown that Brienne was starting to relax. Their destination was the much warmer climes of Sunspear and given they only had little over a week of vacation, Brienne had wanted to fly direct from Winterfell, but Margaery had nixed that idea early. 

“Forget it, Brie. We are hot young twenty-somethings with nothing but time! They write movies about just this sort of adventure.” 

“At least two of those things are objectively untrue,” Brienne had sighed, but she knew Margaery too well to put up more than a token fight. Besides, she hadn't seen much of Westeros and it would be fun to spend dedicated time with her best friend, staying in cheap motels and eating at greasy diners and veering off whenever they wanted. 

“We might not even make it to Sunspear!” Margaery had said on day two when they were still only somewhere in the The Neck. “And that is fine with me.” 

“I was looking forward to being warm,” Brienne had commented glumly. 

“We can turn the heater up in the car. Oh, look, World's Deepest Bog! We should go check it out!” 

They had – though Brienne genuinely had no idea how to tell if it were the world's deepest, it wasn't like you could see to the bottom of the bog yourself, and they certainly wouldn't let her measure it. When she'd pressed the bored young man in the rickety shack at the entrance to the bog, he'd just pointed to one of the crumpled pamphlets. 

“Everything you want to know is in there,” he'd said. 

That had also been objectively untrue, since it hadn't said at all how they knew they had the world's deepest, but Margaery hadn't let her hang around long enough to ask. Margaery wasn't a fan of hanging around anywhere, which was why Brienne was unsurprised when they heard the wail of a siren and saw the flash of lights in their rearview mirror as Margaery sped past a bush hiding a cleverly concealed highway patrol car. 

“Shit!” Margaery yelled, driving faster. 

Brienne yelped and gripped the dashboard. “Marge! Red flashing lights mean pull over!”

“I can't!” she wailed as loudly as the siren. “If I get another speeding ticket, I'll lose my license!”

The car was rattling all around them, Brienne's little hatchback completely unprepared for this kind of sustained speed. When she turned to look behind them she saw their stuff bouncing around in back and she saw clothes falling out of the bag she hadn't realized she'd left open. 

“You have to pull over! I don't want to be accessory to a crime!”

“It's not a crime to speed!” Margaery protested. 

“It very much is!” Brienne yelled back. “That's why they give you a ticket for it!”

Margaery looked over, her eyes huge and worried. “Will you take the hit for me?” she asked, starting to slow a little. 

Brienne stared at her, mystified. “What?”

“When we stop, we change seats really quick and you say you were driving.”

“There is no way--”

“We can do it! You slide your butt over and I'll climb on top of you, it'll be fast.” She was slowing down more and the police car was on their tail now. Even the car felt furious. Brienne couldn't imagine how angry the officer was going to be. “ _Please_ , Brienne,” Margaery begged. “Have you ever even gotten one ticket before? In your whole life?”

She hadn't, but she didn't think that would let her off the hook for avoiding an officer of the law. Still, Brienne had always been terrible about saying no to Margaery, so she exhaled loudly and nodded her head. “Fine. But pull over soon so I have less of a chance of going to jail.” 

“You're the Maiden come to life,” Margaery breathed, braking and swerving to the side so hard that the patrol officer laid on their horn and swerved and bolted past them before coming to their own abrupt stop. 

“Oh gods, oh gods,” Brienne muttered, fumbling with her seat belt and shoving her body as quickly into the driver's seat as she could. Her legs were still stuck in the passenger footwell when the door to the patrol car opened and she was so busy shoving Margaery's butt out of her face and into the seat and then yanking her own legs into some semblance of position that the officer was at her window before she could get a look at them. From the chest and forearms at least, it appeared to be a well-built man. He knocked on the closed window and Brienne and Margaery just stared at each other. 

“Open the window,” the officer snapped and Brienne swallowed and pressed the down button. She took a deep breath and then tilted her head so she could peer up at the officer.

_Are you fucking kidding me?_ was her first thought. 

_Are we in some sort of stealth porno?_ was her second. 

_Would we have to be in a threesome if it were?_ was her third before the officer said, “Hey. Blue eyes. Are you listening to me?”

Brienne blinked and jerked her head back, her whole face flaming with embarrassment. “Sorry, what?”

“I said do you know how fast you were going? Although based on how spaced out you look, maybe I should ask you what kind of drugs you're on.”

“I'm not on any drugs!”

The cop narrowed his bright, green eyes that reminded her of the forest canopy on a sunlit afternoon. “Were you even driving the car?”

“Y-yes.” Gods were those his real eyelashes? They were long, but they also looked too delicate to be anything but real. 

“I'm pretty sure I saw you in the passenger seat. Your silhouettes are hard to mix up.” 

Brienne blushed again. “I was driving, officer.” 

His gaze skated down her body and she shifted uncomfortably in the chair, trying to watch him without ogling. It was hard not to – his hair was close cropped along the back and sides but he had soft, golden curls along the top that were begging to be touched. His profile was, for lack of a better word, perfect, and the hands he'd placed on the door of her car were strong and long-fingered. 

He was also, apparently, talking to her again. 

“ _Miss_ ,” he said, snapping his fingers in her face. She grimaced. “I need you to step out of the car.” 

“What? Why?”

“Yeah!” Margaery finally piped up. “Is this a Ted Bundy sort of situation?”

The officer – J. Lannister according to the name badge on his broad chest – gaped at her. “You think I'm a serial killer?”

“Well I don't _not_ think you're one.”

“Margaery,” Brienne hissed. “I'll get out, Officer Lannister,” she said hurriedly, hoping using his name would at least convince him she wasn't so blitzed out of her mind she couldn't read. He grunted and stepped back out of the way, his hand resting casually on the butt of his gun at his slender hips. 

_Focus_ , she told herself as she opened the door and as slowly as possible swung her legs out of the car. 

“Good,” the cop said. “Now stand up just that slowly.” 

She did, though with her height it took her longer than the average person. She watched Officer Lannister intently as she unfolded, trying to gauge if she were doing it right or not. She must have, because his hand dropped from his gun and his mouth dropped open. 

“There's so much of you,” he said and Brienne felt the blush rocket down her neck that time. 

“It's mostly leg,” she mumbled, and that was the wrong answer because then he looked very intently at her legs and she remembered she was still in her pajama shorts from the morning since they'd left early to try to make good time today. Brienne tugged the fraying hems down but she couldn't get it more than mid-thigh without showing her butt, too. When she glanced up at Officer Lannister, he looked very uncomfortable. 

“What are you doing to my friend?” Margaery demanded from inside the car. “I'm coming out!”

“Stay in the car,” the officer said, his voice rough. “Everything's fine out here. I'm just checking her out.” Then he stared, wide-eyed, at Brienne and shouted, “To see if she's drunk! Not for any other reasons!” 

Margaery grumbled something from inside and Brienne was surprised her entire body wasn't lobster-colored at this point. 

“You seem fine,” the officer said. “I mean, not under the influence of anything.”

“How do you even know that? I've only stood up.” 

The officer frowned at her. “Do you want me to make you take a breathalyzer?”

“I just want to be sure you're doing your job.”

“That I'm--” He rubbed his forehead. “Get back in the car, Blue Eyes.” 

“Brienne.”

“What?”

“My name is Brienne. Brienne Tarth.”

“Would you just get in the car?” he groused, and she did. He slammed the door shut after her and then leaned down into the window. It put his handsome face far too close to hers, even when she leaned away to give herself some space. He smelled nice. 

“Listen. One of you was doing ninety in a sixty zone,” Brienne turned to glare at Margaery, who shrugged a little, “and I'm going to write that ticket. Who do I make it out for?”

“Me,” Brienne said loudly, looking back at him. He'd poked his head a little further in the window and their faces were inches away. Up close, she could see his eyes had little flecks of gold that matched the color of his hair, and there were lines at the corners that suggested he liked to smile.

“All right,” he said, in a very non-authoritative voice. “You it is.” 

“Get writing,” Margaery said, “we have places to be.”

The officer glared at her and banged the back of his head on the car as he was trying to yank it out. Brienne winced in sympathy and watched him stalk back to his car, rubbing his head. Then she saw his shoulders tense before he returned. “I need your license and registration.” They handed it over and he stomped back to his car to write the ticket. 

“ _Ninety?_ ” Brienne hissed at Margaery when he was gone. 

“I had no idea.” 

“That's not comforting. Do they give bigger tickets if you're going that fast?”

“Oh definitely,” Margaery said with the assurance of someone who had lived that reality. 

“I am so mad at you,” Brienne said between clenched teeth, and Margaery patted her arm.

“I'll pay for it, don't worry, Brie. Besides, I think Officer Lannister likes you.” 

“I think he'd like to forget he pulled us over.”

“I think he'd like to get to know your legs better, I saw him 'checking you out',” she said, making air quotes on the last words. 

“I'm going to murder you and then I'll have a ticket _and_ a homicide to my name.”

Margaery laughed and rubbed her shoulder. “You should use your feminine wiles to try to get out of the ticket. I bet he'd let you go.”

“I don't have feminine wiles! I don't have any wiles! I just want to get the ticket and get out of here.” 

The officer was standing again, and she watched him settle his hair, look at himself in his side mirror, and then scrape at something on his teeth really quickly before straightening back up. He tugged down his shirt and walked back over in what Brienne could only describe as a saunter. She'd never actually seen anyone saunter before, but the sort of loose-limbed sway of it could only be that. 

He leaned one arm along the top of the car and then bent down, holding the ticket pad out to her. “Please sign this,” he said. 

Brienne looked it over, choked a little at the price of the ticket, but signed it and handed it back. There was an exchange of papers and then they were done, although Officer Lannister was still leaning down in her window, staring at her. 

“Is that it?” Brienne asked. 

“I guess so.” 

“Well, you're the cop.”

“Right.” He tapped the top of her car. “Then you're free to go.”

“Thank you, Officer Lannister.” 

“Jaime,” he said and she looked at him, befuddled. He cleared his throat. “Officer Jaime Lannister. In case you want to make a report back to my superiors about what a pleasant experience this was for you. I could always do with a positive review.” 

“I'm sure you could,” Brienne said, she started up her car and he stepped back. 

“See you on the return trip, Brienne Tarth.” 

“I'm sure you won't,” Brienne said, and she had to be imagining it, but he looked disappointed. 

Brienne had a chance to ask him four days later when Margaery was speeding back north to get them to Queenstown before their vacation ran out. 

When he sent them on their way again, Brienne had the second ticket in one pocket, and his number in the other.


	12. (J/B - going through a divorce au) The War Between Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They had been married two years when everything that was wrong could no longer be ignored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to warn you all up front: this is really sad. If you’re looking for a cathartic happy ending, it is not here. I took what I see as the worst parts of their characters and turned them up to eleven and dropped them into a bear pit they can’t escape. If you don’t want angst with an ambiguous ending, please continue on! If you do read it, the idea came to me while listening to Tiger Lou's "The War Between Us," if you want some musical accompaniment with your angst.

They had been married two years when everything that was wrong could no longer be ignored. 

It had started going wrong long before that, before the nights they would stubbornly butt heads and shout each other down, until one of them – usually Jaime – left for a hotel. Before the mornings they'd smile awkwardly when they invaded each other's spaces in the kitchen, still not sure how to read the other person's signals even a year in. Even before the hurried, secretive, mid-afternoon wedding at the courthouse, when they were both a little tipsy and Brienne believed Jaime when he insisted that getting married on a whim was the kind of romantic gesture she wanted. 

In the middle of the night, when Brienne was alone in their king-sized bed, she wondered if their first mistake had been meeting at all. He was older than her, and more beautiful by far, and sharp as a blade. Brienne had been young and ugly and soft when they first met; his to mold, though she hadn't realized that was what he was doing when he put his hands on her. She'd been captivated by his glittering edges from the first, and if the price of being with him was that he sliced away her soft parts, it had seemed worth it to have him there. 

Jaime had told her all of his secrets: the incestuous relationship with his sister, what had really happened with Aerys Targaryen, how he wished he was still a good man. 

“You can be,” she'd promise him. “You are.”

“I believe it when you say it,” he would whisper into her skin. If the force of her belief had been enough, he would have been. But he'd been stuck in his patterns too long, and they'd turned him mean in ways she couldn't ignore when they lived together every day. 

“I don't know if you're more stubborn or stupid to think I can be anything but this,” he'd sneer when he'd come home bloody from some confrontation she never asked details about. She knew he wasn't sleeping with Cersei anymore, but that didn't stop other people from believing it, and Jaime was never able to walk away from a fight. 

If he had been, perhaps they would have avoided their last battle, the one that had burned the last of their marriage to the ground. 

Brienne clutched the divorce papers to her chest and knocked on the door of his hotel room. 

He opened it, disheveled and dark-eyed and still handsome. His gaze fixed immediately to the papers, and she saw him lift his own shields up. 

“Personal delivery. What service,” he said, his voice a mockery of the kindness he was only sometimes capable of. “You brought a pen, too, I'm sure. Maybe several, in different colors, so I can sign my name in rainbow to celebrate our new beginnings.”

“Can I come in?” Brienne asked, not waiting for his answer as she used her slightly bigger size to push past him. She'd gotten good at ignoring him when he was standing right there, snarling like a wounded animal. She hardly heard most of it anymore. 

“What if I said no?” he asked as he shut the door behind her. “What if I said come back tomorrow? What if I said Cersei was due here any minute so we could fuck each other senseless?” 

Brienne glanced at him and knew it for the lie it was. “Then you should sign quickly,” she said, keeping her tone modulated. She knew he wanted her to shout, he wanted her to promise him he was better than that, he wanted her to fight him down to the bed where she could make him believe it. 

Jaime grabbed the papers from her hand and threw them on the bed. “I won't sign them.”

“Jaime,” she sighed. “You promised.”

“I make a lot of promises I don't keep. Which is worse: breaking this one, or the promise I made to you when we got married?”

Brienne looked away from him and scanned the room. There was a single empty beer bottle and his clothes were scattered over the chairs. The novel he'd been reading next to her in bed the night before their final argument was sitting on the nightstand. It took Jaime ages to make his way through books, but she'd recommended this one to him and he'd tried, for her sake. 

“When did you give up on us?” he asked and the words were daggers slid into all her vulnerable spots. She hadn't thought she had any left. 

“Don't put this on _me_ ,” she snapped and his eyes flared. He looked relieved and eager. She refused to let him goad her into this again. Brienne inhaled deeply through her nose like her therapist recommended, and then exhaled loudly out of her mouth. “I gave up when I realized you'd never even started fighting.”

Jaime paled beneath the flush of battle, and this time he looked away. “It was my idea to get married.”

“I should have said no.”

“You should have.”

Brienne shook her head. “So that's my fault, too? Big, dumb Brienne, certain she could convince Jaime Lannister he had a heart.”

Jaime's jaw worked furiously, a ripple of steel under the ragged stubble. “You always were too naive for your own good.” He gathered the papers back up and sat down at the desk, his back to her, hunched and tense. “Where do I sign?”

“The highlighted areas, on the lines above your name,” she said, tired. 

When they'd first gotten together she was never tired, and she was always wanting. They'd dated for three whirlwind months until the fateful dawn when he'd woken her up with his mouth at her core and asked her to marry him. They'd stayed in bed all morning, celebrated at a bar first, and then made their way down to the courthouse. It had seemed like a fairy tale, the handsome prince whisking her away to her happy ever after.

She watched Jaime awkwardly sign the papers with his left hand. He'd permanently disabled the right in an accident just before they met. It was how they met – she'd helped him carry his order at the cafe to his table, and then when she'd looked for a free table to eat her own meal and not found one, Jaime had kicked out an empty chair and said it was the least he could do. 

There were so many nights in the last few months she wished she had just said no. 

“There,” he said, slamming the pen down. “One lousy promise kept.”

“Thank you,” Brienne said, gathering the papers up and putting them back in the envelope. 

“That's it then? We're divorced, just like that?”

“I have to file these with the court, but once it goes through that process... yes. That's it.”

“That's it.” He nodded, but he couldn't even look at her. “You must be relieved, to be rid of me.”

They were nearly divorced now, she could be honest, even if it hurt. “I am, a little.”

He laughed, a brittle, painful thing. “One last fuck for the road?”

Brienne looked at him and for a moment she wanted it, wanted him, so badly it choked her. When he was inside her, when he was whispering in her ear, when his hand was on her body, none of the rest of it mattered. It was the only time Jaime ever truly believed he was who she promised he could be. But they couldn't live in their bed, and she needed Jaime to see himself, so he would stop seeing her only as his salvation. All she had ever wanted from him, in the end, was for him to need her a little less, so he could give her a little more. 

But she still couldn't tell him no, and it was a painful relief when he made a disgusted noise in his chest and turned away. “Forget I asked.” 

Brienne checked the papers one more time and then, not sure what else to do, headed for the door. 

“Brienne,” he called, softly. She hesitated and looked back. He was staring at her with a hope so desperate it made her want to cry. “Was there ever a way we could have made this work?”

“Not like this,” she said. 

“What if I changed?”

“You can't.”

He winced. “I might, if I knew it would get you back.”

“You can't change for someone else, Jaime. Don't _you_ want to change? Are you truly happy with who you are?”

“Of course I'm not fucking happy,” he spit, dragging his hand through his hair. “You were the only good thing about me.” 

“That's the problem: I'm not part of you.” Brienne felt like her insides were sandbags, heavy and drooping. “I've got to go.”

“Brienne, wait.” She closed her eyes, but did as he said. She always did. He wasn't the only one who needed to change. She didn't turn around to face him again, though. “I do love you.”

“I know you think you do,” she whispered. “I don't think you know what love is, or you never would have asked me to marry you when you did. I'm sorry Cersei fucked you up so badly, Jaime, but I can't keep fixing what you just keep breaking. It's not my job to put you back together. I can't live like that anymore.”

“Do you--”

“Don't ask me this,” she pleaded. 

“Do you love me?” he pressed, ignoring her. 

There were two answers to that, a lie and a truth, and she wasn't sure which one would hurt her more to give him, so she left without saying a word. 

Walking down the muted hallway, her phone rang. It was him, of course. She answered, of course. They were both so entangled in each other's bad habits not even distance could stop them.

“I miss your laugh,” he said in a rush.

“Jaime--”

“I've missed it for longer than since I moved out. I haven't heard it in so long. That's why I signed the papers. I just want you to know that. I didn't sign them for me. I signed them for you. Because I want you to laugh again someday, even if I'm not there to hear it.”

When he said things like that, Brienne remembered all the reasons she had fallen in love with him. All the ways she loved him, still. She should have lied and told him no. No, she had never loved him with every bright and fragile part of herself. No, she didn't love him with the broken-edged pieces that were left. 

“Do you really think I can be better?”

She pressed her forehead against the wall and tried not to cry. “It doesn't matter what I think. Do you?”

The question hung heavy between them. She wanted him to say yes so badly her chest ached, the way she had felt that first night they'd spent together and he'd looked at her like she was the moon itself. If he said yes, she'd believe him, because of all the terrible things he had said and done he had never lied. If he said yes then she'd leave that space open for him in case one day...

She hoped he would say no. 

Across the line – just down the hall – Jaime took a breath. He said a word.


	13. (J/B - exes meeting again after not speaking for years au) Just Stand There Shining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Jaime signed the divorce papers, he didn't talk to Brienne again for five years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Tropes Short fic meme request by lannistarkth. This is a follow-on to the previous chapter's "going through a divorce AU." You don't have to read that to understand this, just know that Jaime and Brienne had been married and it ended badly. This starts out from that place, but it gets better, I promise. 
> 
> Title from this Anne Lamott quote: “Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”

After Jaime signed the divorce papers, he didn't talk to Brienne again for five years. 

He had told her no, he couldn't be a better man, and then done his best to forget about her, though it had been difficult when their circles had been almost fully overlapped. He'd disappeared inside himself for those first months, and thank the gods for Tyrion, who wouldn't let him go away too long. At least once a week his brother would come to the hotel, harangue him for living in squalor – “Why do you never let the maids do their jobs? They literally pay these people to keep your room from looking like this,” he'd grouse – and then help get Jaime and his mess cleaned up for at least one day. Usually they'd go out to some fancy restaurant that would be nowhere near where Brienne could be, and Jaime would remember what it felt like to be in the world. 

He hated it every time, until eventually he started hating it a little less, and six months in, he moved into his own one-bedroom apartment while Tyrion directed him where to put everything for the best feng shui. 

“What does that even mean?” Jaime asked him, moving the chair another millimeter under Tyrion's narrow-eyed scrutiny. 

“Perfect, just like that. It means I'm helping you open up the paths to success in your life so you don't have to spend the rest of it moping over what's-her-name.”

“Brienne,” Jaime ground out between clenched teeth. 

Tyrion rolled his eyes. “I know her name, Jaime, you never stopped talking about her. I just thought we would limit its use, given everything.”

“That she divorced me, you mean.”

“Yes, Jaime, that she divorced you. Does it help to say it? You let our sister fuck things up even when you weren't still having sex with her. How does that feel?”

Jaime glared at him and sat down in the chair he'd just moved. “It feels like shit.” 

Tyrion raised the glass of wine he'd poured himself. “Here's to the Lannisters: who needs enemies when you have family like us.”

* * *

A year later, Jaime tried to date, but every try went badly and it was, mostly, his own fault. He could feel himself sabotaging his own happiness every time. Tyrion stopped asking about prospects after the eighth failed attempt, and Jaime stopped dating again after the ninth. 

For the first time in three years, devoid of hope, lost without Brienne's patient guidance, Jaime returned to the only other compass he'd ever had. Cersei may have taken him through dark and treacherous paths, but at least she had taken him. 

When he showed up at her door, she looked him up and down with disdain. “So you've finally come crawling back to me.” 

“I never should have left,” he said. The words hurt to say, like he was yanking arrows out of his chest and bleeding away the last of what was good about himself. 

“You're right,” she sniffed. “Come in, then. Robert's gone on another business trip and you'll do.” 

He hesitated in the doorway like he was standing at the edge of a cliff. He stood outside of himself, disgusted at the man prostrating before the toxic force that had ruined his life. Even she didn't want him, not really.

“Well? Are you coming?” Cersei asked, golden and sharp and beautiful. His twin. His ruin. Jaime heard Brienne asking again: _Are you truly happy with who you are?_

He wasn't. He hated this man. Jaime knew Cersei would never change, that Tyrion wouldn't be around to kick his ass forever. The only person Jaime had for the rest of his life was himself. 

“No,” he told Cersei, too, but this one felt like a step forward, not a fall backward. 

“Then why the fuck are you even here?” she snapped. 

“That's a very good question,” Jaime said. He turned and headed back for his car. 

“If you leave now, don't expect me to open my door – or my legs – to you again!” she yelled after him. 

Jaime ignored her and drove home. In his small bathroom he took a long, hot shower and then wiped away the fog on the mirror to stare at himself. For the first time in his life, he believed there might be someone there worth saving.

* * *

Four years later, he was leaving his therapist's office on a Friday afternoon when he saw a familiar blond head that brought him to a halt. Brienne was getting out of an unfamiliar car with a look of determined intensity he knew all too well. Heart in his throat, Jaime studied her like she was an aurora, big and beautiful and soon to be gone again. 

The first thing he noticed was her hair was longer, down past her shoulders now, straight and fine. Her clothes were casual but tailored to suit her broad hips and waist and shoulders. She had a little make-up on, which shocked him the most; she had never worn make-up when they were together. He'd begged her not to, thinking she'd rather know he loved her how she was, but after four years of therapy he knew now he should have asked. 

He should have asked her a thousand things that he'd instead just assumed. 

She was looking at her phone and heading for the door he was stuck, unmoving, in front of, and Jaime nearly had a panic attack trying to figure out what to do. But then she looked up and it was too late to do anything but be captivated again for the first time by the unearthly blue of her eyes. 

She paled beneath the gently applied blush to her cheeks. “ _Jaime?_ ”

“Hello, Brienne,” he said softly. He barely had enough air for that. 

“What are you doing here?”

He gestured at the board outside the door that listed names of all the therapists inside. “I just finished my weekly therapy appointment.”

“You're going to therapy?” He didn't blame her for the thick skepticism, but it hurt a little nonetheless. 

“Four years worth. My therapist assures me I'm almost at where most people start from,” he said, trying to be light about the years of rage and pain he'd had to wade through. He could tell he hadn't entirely succeeded by the sadness in her eyes. They were always so quick to show her feelings, even when every other part of her held them back. “I don't usually go on Fridays, but she had to reschedule me this week.” _It feels like fate_ , he wanted to add, but he knew now that was too much to lay at her feet.

“Oh. You look good,” she said, and then the blush on her cheeks was real, stealing gently across her face in a familiar pattern. She'd changed, but not all of her. 

“You do, too. You look great.” 

She glanced down at her phone. “I need to get to my appointment,” she said gently, and he stepped aside without hesitation. 

“Of course.” 

Brienne took a few steps, passing so near he could have pulled her to him. Though he'd talked about her enough in therapy, he'd tried to never think of her at all otherwise. Having her here – looking slightly different, smelling slightly different, but Brienne all the same – it unmoored him from the safe harbor he'd been docked at for so long.

Her hand on the door, she paused and looked back at him. When he did think of her, those occasions when it was impossible to stop himself, it was the blue of her eyes he remembered. Depthless and innocent and sad. Even her eyes looked a little different now; they did not make him think of desperation and salvation any longer. They were peaceful, like a calm summer lake. Her eyes had never been like that before, he knew, because he'd always been the rock sending ripples through their lives. 

“It's good to see you like this,” Brienne said. 

“Like what?” he asked, genuinely unsure. 

“Like you don't hate yourself.” She smiled a little and then disappeared inside.

* * *

Their paths didn't cross again for another six months, but he could feel her presence in the building now that he knew she came here, too. For the first month after their interaction it had been the only topic of conversation with his therapist. And then even that brief moment became something else he learned to deal with, to release Brienne from any responsibility for how he had responded. 

When he ran into her again, even her differences were normal now. She was alive in the world, hale and whole and happy, as far as he could tell, and that was what he wanted for her. 

This time she was leaving as he was heading in. “Hello,” he said, smiling gently, and she smiled back. 

“My turn to be rescheduled,” she explained. 

“It's good to see you. How's... everything?”

She gave the little mixed chuckle-snort he knew as well as her name. “Everything's good,” she said in such a contented tone that he scanned her hand for a ring. Her long, pale fingers were bare. “How about you?”

Jaime seriously considered the question, weighed the simple, rote pleasures of his life. “It's good, actually.” He wanted to tell her that he'd cut off his family except for Tyrion, that the two of them had decided to set up a business of their own and it was doing well. That he'd had a serious relationship for a year that had ended in mutual respect because they both knew it would never be permanent. That he felt, for the first time in his life, like he was a whole person all by himself. But those were things for him, not her. She just wanted to know he was well, and it touched him that she cared that he was. 

“I'm really glad to hear that,” she said. Her hand twitched, shifted like she would touch him, and his heart jumped a little in his chest. “I shouldn't keep you. It was nice to run into you again.” 

“You, too,” he said, meaning it with every healing part of himself. 

At his session that afternoon, he talked briefly of seeing her before they moved on, and Jaime left knowing he would be okay.

* * *

Two weeks later, tired after a long day and an exhausting session, not quite ready to go home to his empty, still feng-shui'd apartment, Jaime stopped at the coffee shop a block down from his therapist's building. It was a Tuesday afternoon and the shop was mostly empty; too late for the lunch rush, too soon for the crowd getting off work. He was in line to give his order when he heard Brienne's distinctive laugh bubble out from one of the overstuffed chairs, and he closed his eyes and turned his head towards it like he was soaking in the sun. 

Gods, how he had missed her laugh. 

“Sir?” Jaime opened his eyes and saw he was next, so he ordered coffee and a chocolate muffin and waited by the counter, watching her. There were two chairs near the window, but she seemed to be alone. She'd laughed because of the book she was reading, from what he could tell. Her whole body was at ease, her face was lit with delight, her wide mouth open and smiling. She had never looked more beautiful to him. 

“Jaime L.?” the barista called, loudly, and Brienne's head jerked up and the light dimmed as she scanned the room, until she saw him. 

And then, improbably – impossibly – she glowed again as she smiled at him. Jaime couldn't recall her ever looking at him without the dread and worry that had haunted her eyes, no matter how wide she smiled or loudly she laughed before. He felt rooted to the spot, stuck in a sunbeam and unwilling to look away. 

“Jaime L.? Are you still here?”

Brienne grinned and pointed at the counter and he blinked, smiled sheepishly, and got his order. When he glanced back at her, she had set her book down and was watching him, biting her lip in a nervous gesture that was pure Brienne. She gestured at the empty seat next to her and he thought he might weep with gratitude. 

“I don't want to intrude,” he said. “It seems like you were enjoying your book, and there are plenty of spaces for me to sit.” 

“It's fine,” she said. “You're welcome to this one. These are the nicest chairs for people like us. Tall,” she explained, when he looked at her quizzically. 

“That's true.” He set his food and then himself down, their long legs reaching out towards a point in the middle but not touching. “Do you come here often?” he asked, and then winced at how much of a come-on it seemed. 

Brienne didn't seem offended, though. “Almost always after my sessions. I was in the area to pick something else up and decided to stop in for a bit on a whim.” Her eyes were big, but not innocent any longer. Not hurt either. She looked older, but wiser for it. “What about you?”

“I've been before, but it's not regular. I had a long day and an expensive, fancy coffee sounded good.”

“And a muffin.”

“You can't have fancy coffee without an overpriced muffin,” he said lightly, and she laughed again and the sound of it washing over him was a gift. “Tell me about your book?” 

She did, pausing sometimes to stifle a laugh, leaning nearer at one point to show him the paragraph that he'd heard her responding to before. It was so easy to listen to her, to soak in the gentle humor in her warm voice and not demand she give him more. Instead he gave her his attention, asked her questions, laughed when she did because he was moved to out of genuine amusement, not because he feared not doing it would hurt her. 

They talked for awhile after that, about his and Tyrion's business, about the work she was doing, too. Neither of them was changing the world, but they were both engaged and happy enough. Brienne mentioned a few names he hadn't heard before, friends of hers from the way she talked about them, but not once did it sound like she was seeing someone. 

He tried not to dwell on that. 

Eventually her phone buzzed and she looked down and sighed. “Time for my weekly call with my dad,” she said and he dared not hope it was disappointment he heard in her tone. 

“This was really nice, Jaime.” Brienne touched his forearm and he forgot, for an instant, how to make his lungs work. “You seem so different, but like it's the way you were always meant to be.” 

“So do you,” he managed between suddenly dry lips. She smiled, pleased. 

“Hopefully we'll run into each other again.”

“I'd like that,” he said, like it was even a thing he could wish for. Brienne squeezed his arm and then she was gone, but he carried the warm imprint of her palm all week.

* * *

The next week, Jaime stopped by the coffee shop again after his appointment, not truly expecting her to be there, stunned when she was. She had the same smile and a new book, and they spent another couple of hours talking. 

“See you next week?” she asked shyly, before she left. 

“That would be great,” he said. 

Every Tuesday, for three months, they met in the coffeeshop after Jaime's session. Brienne would share whatever she was reading, Jaime would happily listen, and then they would talk – about current events, people walking by outside and, slowly and with a tender caution, eventually about themselves. 

“It took me a little while to realize I needed therapy,” he admitted one afternoon. “But I'm glad I did.”

“I am, too,” she said sincerely. 

“I'm not seeing anyone,” she said a different day, and if it hadn't been her he would have thought it a careless, offhand comment. But she was folding down the corners of her book as she said it, and afterward she seemed unable to meet his stare. 

Jaime didn't know what to say to that, so he went with the truth and said, “Neither am I.” She did look up then, and it got very quiet all around them, although nothing had changed except the way she was looking at him. 

“Oh,” she replied, barely more than a breath. Her cheeks were pink again under the make-up she wore. For the first time since they'd been married, Jaime wanted just to kiss her. He looked away first, and asked after her father instead. 

The next week, after three months of weekly coffee chats; after nine months of knowing their circles once again, even tenuously, overlapped; after five years of being divorced from the woman he had so badly loved, Brienne was standing when he walked into the coffeeshop. 

“Is everything all right?” he asked, before he even stopped to place his order. She looked nervous, her hands twisting over and around themselves. There was no book to be seen. 

“Will you go to dinner with me?” she asked, fast and a little too loud. 

Jaime blinked, trying to recall how words worked. “Um. Yes?”

“You don't have to. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have assumed. I've been enjoying our talks and I thought, I mean you seemed—”

“Brienne,” he said, softly, trying to calm both of them. “I would love to go to dinner with you. But don't you have your call with your dad tonight?”

“I told him I was busy and I'd call him tomorrow,” she said, flushing much more red this time, deeper than he'd seen since they were still married. 

“Well, we don't want to make a liar out of you,” Jaime said, and she smiled.

* * *

Dinner went much like their coffee talks, but better and for longer. When Brienne grew restless under the annoyed gaze of their waiter at the way they lingered at the table, Jaime suggested they leave.

As they stood outside the restaurant on the sidewalk, each with their arms around their own bodies against the chill, Brienne had tilted her head and asked, “Would you like dessert at my place?”

Jaime's body had responded with instant, unbearable want, but he gripped his arms more tightly around himself. “I do,” he said slowly. “More than you know. But I can't. We can't until we talk about what happened before.” 

“I was young,” she said. 

“And I was old enough to know better. And I hurt you.”

“I hurt you, too.” 

He inclined his head. She had, which had taken him a long time to admit even to himself. During their time together before, Brienne had been perfect, untouchable. He had believed he was the only dark and painful stain on their relationship. Now with time and distance and understanding, he knew that for the delusion it was. It had been unfair to expect everything from her except her flaws. 

“You did,” he said now. He was relieved to see her accept it as a quick and painful truth, as necessary and unwelcome as a shot. “I don't want to just pick up from where we were.”

“Jaime,” she said, and she was smiling with some knowledge he hadn't yet unlocked. “We're not. These last few months have been getting to know each other. You know more about me now than you ever did when we were married. I know more about you, too. This isn't restarting what we had before. We never had any of this before.” She brushed her fingers over his cheek and he shivered under her touch. Her skin was the same, but everything else felt different. 

“It can't be entirely new,” he said hoarsely, “because I never stopped loving you.” 

She curled her fingers around the back of his neck, closer now and pulling him closer still. “You didn't love me before: you needed me. You don't need me any more, but you might love me.” 

“I do,” he said. He didn't need to think about it at all; he had known it for weeks, he just hadn't recognized the slow-burning coal in his heart was love. For all of his life, love had been a bonfire, wild and dangerous and all-consuming. This felt warm and solid and safe. It felt like Brienne. 

“Good.” She smiled tenderly at him. “I needed you before, too, but I don't need you now, either. I want you,” she said, rubbing her thumb along the edge of his jaw. She was so different, and so much herself, Jaime wondered that he could ever have wanted her any other way than like this. 

“Then ask me again,” he said. 

“Would you like to come back to my place?” she asked. Her breath heated him against the cool night. The question hung in the small space between them, a second chance to do things right this time. To live with her and not for her. He had only to believe. Brienne waited, patiently, for an answer. 

This time, he said yes.


	14. (J/B - knocking on the wrong door au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't every day Brienne returned to her dorm room from a grueling organic chemistry test to find a naked man in her bed. 
> 
> It wasn't _any_ day, actually, as it had never happened until this moment. She'd opened the door, brain already half-melted out of her ears, shut it again behind her with a weary sigh, and thrown her books on the desk when an unfamiliar male voice said, “Hey, baby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> luthienebonyx requested "knocking on the wrong door au" for the Tropes Short Fic meme on tumblr. This is a modern college AU.

It wasn't every day Brienne returned to her dorm room from a grueling organic chemistry test to find a naked man in her bed. 

It wasn't _any_ day, actually, as it had never happened until this moment. She'd opened the door, brain already half-melted out of her ears, shut it again behind her with a weary sigh, and thrown her books on the desk when an unfamiliar male voice said, “Hey, baby.”

“ _Who the fuck are you?_ ” Brienne shouted, leaping into a fighting stance, fists raised, instead of the much-more-standard response of fleeing the room. 

“Who the fuck are _you_?” the man yelped as he jumped up – naked, she noticed immediately – out of her bed. 

“You're in _my_ dorm room; you tell me!”

“This is Cersei Lannister's room, you giant oaf!”

Brienne gaped at him. He was probably handsome, by most standards, but she was so stunned she couldn't do more than appreciate how unfairly symmetrical his face was. Okay so she did also appreciate how athletically built his body was, and his penis-- she jerked her gaze back up to his face and instead of being angry he smirked at her. 

“This is my room,” she insisted, though in her post-exam exhaustion and with this dream-level handsome invader in front of her, she was starting to second guess herself. Brienne looked around, settling her reality: poster of her favorite movie – a romantic comedy where the couple are actually equals and the woman gets her own life, check; her Tarth Pirates jacket slung over the chair, check; picture of her and her father in a frame on the desk, check. She picked it up and shoved it at the man's face. “See?” 

He peered at the picture and then at her and then at the picture again, like she was trying to trick him or something.

“Hmph,” he said, as though she'd evicted Cersei and stolen the room, and he put his hands on his hips and it was extremely difficult to keep her eyes at or above his chin-level. “She said this was the number. 202.”

“This is 220,” Brienne said, and Jaime winced. “It's an easy mistake,” she added quickly and then rolled her eyes at herself internally. There was no need to make excuses for him, _he_ was the one intruding on _her_ private space. 

The man took a step nearer and Brienne lifted her fists again from where they'd sunk down to her waist. “I'm not going to attack you,” he sneered. “I need my clothes. They're on the chair.” 

Brienne looked down and flushed, stepping aside so he could grab them. It wasn't a trick of the light, his skin really was almost golden. It reminded her an awful lot of Cersei Lannister herself. The Golden Queen they called her, sometimes at her request. Gods, she was insufferable. “Does this even look like the type of room Cersei Lannister would be in?” Brienne asked suddenly. Surely he couldn't think Cersei's dorm was so... average. 

The man snorted and looked around as he tugged on his boxers. Brienne studiously tried not to see if they were silk. (They were.)

“No, Cersei would never live anywhere so drab.” Now in his boxers, the man looked Brienne up and down. “Suits you, I suppose.” 

She hated his dumb muscular forearms as they tugged tight black jeans up and around a very well-formed butt. “You took the time to get naked and into my bed, and you didn't even look around? Are you an idiot or just horny?”

He straightened, his fly still undone, his lips peeled back in a glinting smile. “I'm not idiotic or horny enough to fuck you, if that's what you're worried about.”

“I'm not, I'm mostly just worried you're functional enough to be left on your own,” she shot back. 

The stranger blinked and then, absurdly, he laughed. A lot. And not at her. She knew all too well what that sounded like. “Cersei would say I'm not,” he said. “Maybe you're more like her than I thought.”

“Take that back,” Brienne said, her mouth moving before her brain kindly reminded her this man had come specifically to have sex with Cersei. 

“So you've met her,” he said dryly. 

“She's hard to avoid,” Brienne muttered. 

“Tell me about it.”

“You shouldn't be so mean about your own girlfriend,” Brienne scolded him, and he stood there in the middle of her dorm room, still half-naked and all gorgeous, and grinned at her. 

“Defending even the indefensible woman, what are you a Chivalry major?”

She made a disgusted grunt and said, “Microbiology.” 

“Awfully big hands for _micro_ biology.”

“Oh that's hilarious, I've never heard that before.”

He fake-pouted at her. “Really? A shame, I like my barbs to be original at least. I'll do better in the future.” 

“If I'm lucky, there will be no future.” 

“You don't seem like a very lucky woman... what's your name anyway?”

She bristled, hugging her arms around herself. She felt bigger-than-normal in her small single dorm room with this still bare-chested, annoying god in the space with her. “Put on your shirt.”

“Sounds like an old Targaryen name.”

Against her better judgement and good sense, Brienne snorted in amusement at that, and his green eyes lit like two bright flames. _Crap_ , she thought. Now he looked friendly, and that just made him more attractive. “Brienne,” she allowed. 

“I'm Jaime.”

“I don't care.”

He raised his eyebrows and finally pulled on his shirt. It was tight and dark red and he looked sexier than when he'd been half-naked, the sleeves hugging his biceps. What the fuck. “You should, I'm sure we'll be seeing lots more of each other.”

“There's not much more of you for me to see,” she snapped, and then flushed when he gave her a silky half-smile. 

“I hope you enjoyed what you saw.” 

"I didn't."

Even he could see that was a lie. "You should lock your door in the future. Dangerous to just leave it open."

"I was in a hurry," she mumbled.

"Safety first, Brienne. You need to protect what I'm sure is your unspoiled virtue."

“Get out of my room,” she growled.

“Already leaving,” Jaime said, grabbing a leather jacket she hadn't noticed at the edge of her bed. When he brought it up and around to pull it on, the smell of it mixed with his cologne made an unwelcome heat curl in her belly. 

“If you don't like her, why are you dating her?” Brienne dared to ask just as Jaime opened the door. 

He stopped and looked over his shoulder at her and there was, unexpectedly, resignation on his face. “Honestly, sometimes I don't know.” Jaime seemed to shake himself, and the careless facade was back. “But mostly it's because we have incredible sex. Keep your door open, I'm sure you'll hear in a bit.”

“Ugh, gods,” she said, shoving the door closed on him. He slammed a hand up against it to hold it open and she was shocked to find he was strong enough to do it. “What?” she nearly yelled. 

Jaime gestured at her poster with his chin. “That's my favorite movie,” he said, “you have good taste, at least.” Then he winked at her and let her shut the door on him and his offensively pretty face. 

When she cracked it open again a minute later and poked her head gingerly out of the door, she saw him at the opposite end of the hall, standing in front of Cersei's door. His shoulders lifted and fell with a big breath before he knocked. He didn't look like he was going to see his girlfriend, he looked like he was going to his doom. 

_It's none of my business_ , Brienne thought. _I will never see any part of Jaime whoever-he-is again._

She firmly did not regret it, even when she could still smell his cologne faintly on her sheets that night.


	15. (J/B - partners in crime/writer & editor au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is the worst idea you've ever had, and that's saying something,” Brienne hisses as Jaime fiddles with the lock on the front door.
> 
> “We're doing research.”
> 
> “We're breaking and entering! Into a mobster's store! They literally make tragic films about people who make these kinds of decisions.” 
> 
> Jaime, dressed all in black, shoots her a grin. “Who do you think they'll get to play me in the film?”
> 
> She hits him on the shoulder and he grunts. “The people like us _die_ in those movies.” 
> 
> “Nah,” he says lightly, and the door clicks open. “We're the heroes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seraliceterrant asked for: "11 or 12 -- if you want to combine them, that is perfectly alright!" for the Tropes Short Fic meme on tumblr. I decided to go with the combo of partners in crime au and writer & editor au to create this fluffy modern AU nonsense. :)

“This is the worst idea you've ever had, and that's saying something,” Brienne hisses as Jaime fiddles with the lock on the front door.

“We're doing research.”

“We're breaking and entering! Into a mobster's store! They literally make tragic films about people who make these kinds of decisions.” 

Jaime, dressed all in black, shoots her a grin. “Who do you think they'll get to play me in the film?”

She hits him on the shoulder and he grunts. “The people like us _die_ in those movies.” 

“Nah,” he says lightly, and the door clicks open. “We're the heroes.” 

Brienne doesn't feel like a hero, she feels like a reporter at a local newspaper who is way out of her depth ferreting out a scandal about local corruption, egged on by her handsome, obnoxious editor. 

She follows him inside the storefront anyway. It's a pawn shop out here, full of knick-knacks and unique items. Jaime beelines for an old typewriter and runs his gloved hands over the keys. 

“Check this out, Cubbie.” She rolls her eyes. He's been calling her Cubbie – short for cub reporter – for almost four years now, ever since she joined the King's Landing Post fresh out of college, twenty-two years old and full of idealism for using the written world to right wrongs, to shine a light into the dark underbelly of King's Landing. 

For the first year the only underbellies she saw belonged to farm animals for all the special interest stories she got shuffled off to. Her second year, she refused to do another one, which was when Jaime sent her to Pennytree to follow the trail of a missing local girl. When Brienne returned months later with the girl and a story, he'd been impressed. 

What Brienne hadn't counted on was that Jaime Lannister, notoriously sharp editor who'd earned his infamy and respect early, loved having a partner in his ridiculous escapades. What she couldn't understand was why Jaime insisted that partner be _her_. 

But it's been two years since Pennytree and this is by far the biggest – and most dangerous – story they've tracked down yet. 

Jaime's still at the typewriter and Brienne's nerves are already stretched thin. “Stop fondling that thing and let's get going,” she snaps. 

He shoots her an inscrutable look from across the store but with one last drag of his finger on the keys, he steps away and heads behind the counter. “You have the bugs?” he asks her. She fishes around in her pocket and hands him two tiny devices, one of which he affixes to the counter just under the register. 

“Let's check in back,” he whispers, pointing to the closed door. It's unlocked, and when he opens it, he gasps out loud. “Holy shit, Tarth, this is it.” She peers over his shoulder into the darkness and sees stacks and stacks of long boxes. 

“What...” His flashlight shines along the sides. _Ammunition_ one says. _Weaponry_ say several others. _C-4_ says another that's much bigger than a box of C-4 should be. “Oh, shit,” she whispers. It all feels far too real now. “We've gotta get out of here.” 

“Hold on, let me get some photos. And we still have to place the bug.” 

“I don't think that's a good idea. Surely they have some sort of alarm if they're storing all of this here?”

While Jaime takes photos of everything, Brienne looks all along the floor, the walls, and then up to the ceiling, where she finally spots a little red light flashing frantically. “Jaime!” she whisper-shouts. “We gotta get out of here.” 

“One more,” he says, using the flash. “We're gonna save the entire fucking city because of this, Tarth, and put Targaryen behind bars forever.” 

A car screeches to a halt out front and they both go still, staring wide-eyed at each other. 

“Quick,” Jaime says, hurrying her out of the room ahead of him, shutting the door behind them both. There are voices outside, multiple car doors slam, and they both see flashlight beams. 

“Fuck,” Brienne says. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck.” 

“Good idea,” he says. “Remember I'm doing this to save your life.” He yanks off his gloves and pulls hers off, too, tugs the caps off of both of their heads and in one swift move, pulls his shirt up and off. His hands go to her shirt and she understands what he's doing, and why, but she's frozen in place. “I don't want to get shot, do you?” he says gently, and they're at the door to the pawnshop now so she shakes her head, no. Jaime pulls her shirt up and over her head and Brienne shivers in the cold air. “I'd hoped to do this somewhere far more romantic,” he says, before he cups her cheeks in his hands and kisses her sweetly. 

As the door opens, he pours heat into the kiss and she's not pretending when she moans into his mouth, when her hands clench at his bare shoulders. 

“Hey!” some goon shouts and they don't stop kissing. She's terrified she's going to die, and she may as well go as she wished she'd lived: kissing Jaime Lannister. “What the fuck are you doing?” the man yells, and Jaime's hands tighten briefly against her before he lets go and they break apart, chests heaving. 

They definitely look like they've been caught almost fucking. 

“Trying to show my girlfriend a good time,” Jaime says, pouty and annoyed. He's got an impressive bulge in his pants and Brienne tries very hard not to gawp at it. She wonders if they've had sex before, in this imaginary relationship Jaime's dreamed up, or if this is their first time. Either way: safest not to stare at his dick. 

“That's a woman?” the goon says, laughing, and he shines his flashlight right into Brienne's face so she only hears Jaime's snarled response. 

“Leave her alone.” 

“Or what, pretty boy?” The flashlight dips from her face and she blinks furiously but she can't see anything now except the light reflecting off of Jaime's golden chest. 

“Look, I'm sorry we broke into your dump, but she's really into typewriters.” He points at the one he was looking at earlier. “Freaky, right?”

Brienne glares at him. If they _were_ actually dating, she'd be mad as hell at him right now. She leans into it. “Shut up,” she tells him. “Stop telling strangers about our sex life, Jaime.” 

Jaime's eyes glint in the glare of the flashlight. “The nice men want to know why we broke into their pawn shop.”

“That part was your idea,” she says, really rolling now. Jaime looks far too amused to be believable, but she can see better and the four men are all watching her. “I would have been fine with our typewriter at home.” 

“I got it for her for our first anniversary,” Jaime tells them. 

“Do you, like, have sex _on_ it?” one of the other goons asks. There's triumph in Jaime's eyes and Brienne is one breath away from warning him not to get too cocky when a third goon speaks up.

“Of course they can't have sex on it. Look at the size of her. She'd break it.” 

“She'll break you,” Jaime warns him and Brienne rolls her eyes. 

“It's the sound,” she says hurriedly. “I like how they sound. When we're, uh, fucking.” She winces, not sure why she's decided the Brienne of this fake relationship is fine saying 'fucking' to a bunch of mobster lackeys, but it's a choice she's made now and Jaime looks... interested. 

“That is pretty freaky,” Goon Number One says. 

“Who types?” Goon Two asks. “While you're doing it?”

“Both of us,” they say at the same time, and the goons lower their weapons, fully buying into their obviously absurd story. Apparently they give off a strong enough couple vibe that they goons let them pull their shirts back on before they escort them, not unkindly, out of the pawnshop. 

“Listen, lady, do whatever the fuck you want in your own bedroom, but if we ever find you in our store again, it's not gonna go down so easy. You get me?” Goon One tells her just before they get back in the car. 

Brienne nods a lot, and quickly. “Totally get you, sir.” 

They leave Brienne and Jaime standing on the sidewalk in front of the store, and the two of them stand there until the car is gone, and then another ten seconds, before Brienne turns and punches Jaime hard in the arm. 

“Ow!” he yelps. “What the hell? I saved us!”

“You told a bunch of mobsters I like to have sex with a typewriter!”

“It got us out alive, didn't it?”

“It's a miracle that worked, Lannister.” 

“Mm,” he says, and he looks far happier than he has any right to. “They bought our cover story.”

“Well, joke's on them, I guess.” 

Jaime lifts his eyebrows expectantly. 

“What?” she asks.

“You kissed me back,” he says. 

Brienne blushes, a heat deep in her cheeks. “I had to,” she says weakly. “I didn't want to die.” 

“You didn't have to moan like that.” 

Oh, gods. “That was just...” Brienne waves her hand around vaguely. They stand with her unfinished sentence between them for an excruciating amount of time. 

“Pretty speechless for a writer. That must have been a good kiss.” He's so smug she thinks she might hate him a little bit, but she knows that's not true. She hasn't hated Jaime for years. 

“You're my editor,” she says, suddenly inspired. “Edit.” 

“All right. 'That was just... something I've been wanting to do for a long time.' How's that work?”

Jaime's still smiling, but it's not as easy and confident as it was before. She recalls suddenly what he'd said earlier. 

“You're talking about you,” she realizes. “Do you want to kiss me?”

“More than you can possibly imagine,” he says, and he slides his hands back into her hair, slowly, giving her time to pull away. 

She doesn't. Instead she lets him pull her near, licks her lips when his mouth hovers near hers. He's not quite her height, but he's very close. “I don't really like to have sex around typewriters,” she whispers, and she can feel his laughter on her lips. 

“That's okay,” he says, just before he kisses her. “I'm not gonna get you one for our first anniversary.”

A year later, he doesn't. He gets her a Pulitzer instead.


	16. (J/B - two miserable people meeting at a wedding AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why haven't you told me anything about the girl?” Jaime asked suddenly. Was she in the same situation as him? 
> 
> “You didn't need to know.”
> 
> “I'm going to be marrying her, I could at least know her name.” 
> 
> Tywin huffed. “Her name is Brienne Tarth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slipsthrufingers requested "two miserable strangers meeting at a weddin au" for the Tropes Short Fic meme over on tumblr. I actually started writing something completely different than this but it got way too huge and I fear boring, so when I backtracked to try a different take on this idea, this popped up. :) Modern AU, with bonus arranged marriage trope, too.

“This isn't fair.” 

Tywin Lannister just lifted one white eyebrow in an expression that said: “Life isn't fair, Lannisters do not complain about doing their duty, and you will get married today if I have to drag you to the sept myself.” Out loud he said nothing. 

Jaime glared at him through the mirror, and straightened his bow tie. 

“You know we live in the twenty-first century now, Father, not the sixteenth. You can't force me to marry a complete stranger.” 

“I'm not forcing you, Jaime. You made a decision.”

“Ah, yes, between this and being destitute. Entirely fair.”

“Your lack of independent savings is your own doing, not mine.” Tywin could not have looked more disinterested in Jaime's arguments unless he was actually asleep. 

Jaime turned to face him. “I could still give it all up, you know.” 

“You won't,” Tywin said, in a tone that suggested he was done with Jaime's false bravado. 

For a very long second, Jaime considered it: ripping off the bowtie he'd just perfected, throwing it at his father's feet, declaring himself his own man and walking away to the nearest ATM to grab as much money as he could before Tywin shut down his accounts. Maybe he could convince Tyrion to forgive him enough to put him on his couch until he got a job doing... something. Jaime hadn't exactly _wasted_ his early twenties, but he hadn't paid a lot of attention in college, and now he was twenty-five with no business experience except whatever his father threw at him in the family corporation. 

“Why haven't you told me anything about the girl?” he asked suddenly. Was she in the same situation as him? 

“You didn't need to know.”

“I'm going to be marrying her, I could at least know her name.” 

Tywin huffed. “Her name is Brienne Tarth.” 

Tarth. It didn't ring any bells. Jaime had expected a Tyrell or a Baratheon or even a Stark. “I don't know her.” 

“Precisely.”

“Wait, you're saying this random woman is the only person that would agree to marry me?” Jaime laughed. Maybe he'd spent his twenties more successfully than he'd thought, if the reputation he'd built had managed to keep all of the big houses from wanting to attach their daughters' good names to his. “Does she know she's marrying me?” His father's face said it all and Jaime couldn't stop laughing, then. 

“You don't have to be like this,” Tywin said, disgusted. “Her family oversees an island Lannister Group is very interested in. You're lucky we found anyone with a modicum of respectability to take you on.” 

“Take me on,” Jaime said, gasping for air. His cheeks hurt. “I stand to inherit your fortune, she's taking that on, not me.” 

“Unfortunately for her, you come with the money.” Tywin blew a stream of annoyed air from his nose. “Are you done with your pretend crisis? We're going to be late.” 

“Oh. I don't want to be late to meet the new missus, do I?” Jaime sauntered out of the room ahead of his father, already coming up with a plan.

* * *

“This isn't fair.” 

Selwyn Tarth patted Brienne's hand and made noises of comfort, but she knew he wasn't listening. He never listened to her, not really, no matter how many times she protested being forced into this position. 

“Why can't you at least tell me who he is first? I should get to know that, if I'm making this sacrifice for you.” 

“You're making it for Tarth,” her father said, as he said some version of every time. It was a low blow, but it was true: if they didn't get an infusion of money soon, developers would take over her beloved island and it would become just another overpriced resort destination, ruining everything that was good about it. The local Tarths didn't rule over the island anymore, but they were the most well-off family on the island, and they helped fund the flagging government and kept the developers at bay as long as they could. But their money was running out. The destruction of the local fishing industry due to climate change had set the island back decades, and they were just now trying to establish themselves as a natural reserve, but they were struggling to do it before the sharks rolled in. Or, as in their case, the lions. Lannister Group was salivating over their pristine beaches, and she'd do anything, even marry a complete stranger, to keep their greedy paws off of Tarth. 

“It still doesn't make sense why you wouldn't tell me who he is,” she pressed. “He's obviously rich. Is it Loras Tyrell? He's unmarried still. Renly Baratheon?” She watched her father closely, but his craggy features gave nothing away. “Is he a Frey?” 

“You'll find out shortly.” 

She would, because they were waiting in a small room just off the main sept for their notice to enter. The wedding, at least, was small, as far as she'd been told. Mostly she'd been kept sequestered with her awful Septa, who Brienne suspected was in love with her father, if her eagerness to get rid of Brienne was any indication. 

“Finally!” Roelle had said just that morning. “Someone's finally taking you off our hands.” 

“I don't belong to you,” Brienne had said, looking at herself in the mirror. The dress was blue, at least, and adorned with suns and stars, but no dress could hide how tall and broad she was. She wondered what her betrothed looked like, if he was feeling the same dread she was. They hadn't told him about her, either, which she suspected was to keep him from searching for her photo online and changing his mind. 

“Well today you won't belong to Selwyn any more, either, thank the gods,” Roelle had said, tugging Brienne's bodice up, though she didn't have cleavage to speak of anyway. “Some poor boy will be stuck with you and you can finally be useful.” 

“Why are you even here?” Brienne asked. Since she'd turned eighteen, she'd managed to distance herself from Roelle's daily attacks, had often forgotten Roelle was even in the huge, drafty mansion they all occupied together. 

“Selwyn asked me to help you.” 

“I don't want your help,” Brienne had said firmly. “And since I'm not longer your problem, as you pointed out, I release you from having to spend one more minute in my presence.”

Roelle had gaped at her, stunned, and then retreated from the room in a fury. Brienne hadn't seen her since. 

Remembering it now, it was sure to the be the highlight of Brienne's terrible day. Maybe being married wouldn't be the worst thing, if she could use her own anger and frustration to make her more confident by far. Unless her new husband was as bad as Roelle. 

Brienne's shoulders slumped. There was no way to know, because her father refused to tell her who she was marrying. But if she refused, Tarth was doomed. They'd signed a prenup, so she had to stay married to have access to the money. 

“You're on,” one of the sept's pages said, smiling nervously at her. He was young, thirteen at most, with brown hair and gentle eyes. “You look nice.” 

Brienne blushed a little, smoothing down the front of her dress. “Thank you.” 

They followed him out of the room and before the doors to the sept opened to reveal her future husband, Selwyn paused, squeezing Brienne's arm. “Thank you for what you're about to do,” he said solemnly. “It will be worth it.” 

She very much doubted that. She entirely disbelieved it when the doors opened and she saw the small crowd of blond heads on one side of the aisle, the assorted representatives from Tarth on the other. And there waiting for her at the end of this last endless walk was Jaime fucking Lannister. 

“No,” she said, her feet unmoving, even when Selwyn took a step forward. Her father looked down at her. “Dad,” she hissed. “He's a Lannister. We're trying to save Tarth _from_ the Lannisters.”

Selwyn glanced towards where Jaime was waiting, grinning and apparently unconcerned about his bride-to-be's obvious reluctance. 

“It's the only way, Brienne.” He kept his voice so soft she had to lean forward to hear him. “They have the money we need, and you'll be in charge of it. It's better to fight from inside the belly of the beast. That's where all the soft parts are.” 

“Soft parts?” she whispered harshly. “They don't have any soft parts! They're all greedy, smug, bastards.”

“Surely not _all_ of us,” Jaime said, his voice carrying easily in the perfect acoustics of the sept. 

Brienne shut her eyes and knew she was going entirely red in the face, but she forced herself to face Jaime. “Enough of you,” she said. “You especially.” 

“Is that any way to greet your husband?”

“We're not married.”

“Not yet,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “But very soon.” 

Brienne considered her options. There weren't many. One: run away and go live in Essos, knowing that she's consigning Tarth to being owned by the Lannisters anyway. Or two: walk down the aisle and get married to Jaime Lannister and spend the rest of her life with the so-called Golden Lion, who did everything to excess, hoping she could convince him to not destroy her home. 

She met his eyes across the long walk. Everyone was watching her, waiting for her decision. She stared at Jaime. 

_Trust me_ , he mouthed slowly, over-enunciating the silent words. _I have a plan._

She was surrounded by people she couldn't trust, including, it seemed, her own father. That was going to hurt later when this was all done. But at least Jaime was in the same situation she was, and he couldn't want to be stuck with her any more than she wanted to be stuck with him. She was far too boring for his playboy ways. 

Trust him, he said. She didn't, and she never would. But she trusted herself. She could handle him, at least long enough to get Tarth on track. 

Brienne squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and stalked down the aisle to marry Jaime Lannister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a part 2 now! [You can read it here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/60908695).


	17. (J/B - two miserable people meeting at a wedding AU - part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ceremony was lovely: the groom was smiling, the bride's father was emotional. The bride herself was also emotional, although her primary emotion seemed to be banked fury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a WIP, this is just me writing another random scene in this modern arranged marriage AU. Will there be more later? I honestly don't know. [First part is here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142283/chapters/59707285).

The ceremony was lovely: the groom was smiling, the bride's father was emotional. The bride herself was also emotional, although her primary emotion seemed to be banked fury. 

Jaime didn't entirely blame her, although the disgust in her eyes when the Septon bid them kiss seemed disproportionate to the act. He kissed her on the cheek, quickly, though he had to get up briefly on his tiptoes to do it. She'd looked like a huge bull marching down the aisle towards him, skirt gathered up in her thick-fingered grip, face twisted with determination. Up close she had so much physical presence Jaime was briefly concerned the Septon might forget Jaime was there. 

Fortunately, Jaime was good at making himself unforgettable. 

“A bit tighter, Septon,” he'd said during the hand binding. “I don't want my giant wife to rip her hand from mine in her enthusiasm.” 

That had earned him an acidic glare out of her lovely blue eyes. The only good thing about her, frankly, and if they'd ever had to make this sham marriage into something real, also the only thing he'd hope their children would inherit from her. 

After the ceremony they were forced to stand in the sept lobby to wait for their families to filter out. Brienne's side came out first, just as huge and hulking as she was. 

“Do they feed every Tarth hormones from an early age?” he asked when her father filled the doorway. 

“Do they teach every Lannister to be a sarcastic ass?” she snapped. 

“They do,” he said, grinning. “Some of us just take to it better than others.” 

Selwyn Tarth loomed in front of them, a hair taller than his beastly daughter, and Jaime straightened. He wasn't a slender man himself, worked to keep his body well-muscled and athletic, but he felt like a skinny child next to Selwyn. 

“I didn't choose this lightly,” Selwyn said, glaring at Jaime. “If I find out you are hurting my daughter, I will rip you apart with my bare hands.” 

“I don't doubt you could,” Jaime said lightly, eying the meaty weapons in question. “I'm not in the business of hurting women, though, so my body will remain in one piece. Unless she takes me apart first.”

He'd meant it in a violent way, not a sexual one, but Brienne blushed so deeply red, Jaime couldn't resist leaning into the alternative meaning, leering a bit at her. 

Selwyn's lip curled in disgust. “Just keep to the prenuptial agreement, Lannister. You share your good fortune with my daughter, she gives you the respectability you seem incapable of earning on your own, and everyone wins.” 

“Respectability is overrated, but holding onto the vast wealth I've been promised is worth paying any price.” Selwyn's hands formed very intimidating fists and Jaime decided getting knocked unconscious on his wedding day wasn't worth it. “And your daughter is a small price, anyway. I'm sure we'll get along swimmingly before we're dead.” 

“Only if I kill you first,” she muttered, and at least Selwyn turned that stony glare on _her_ this time. 

“Brienne,” he sighed, and he placed his hands on her shoulders. They stared at each other, communicating silently, before he sighed again, deeper and slower and sadder, and let her go. Brienne turned her face away from both of them. 

They shook hands with the rest of the Stormlanders, and then Jaime's own father came marching out. He ignored Brienne entirely. 

“You actually went through with it,” Tywin said. “Imagine my surprise.” 

“That was a particularly delicious carrot you dangled and I am but an eager bunny.” 

Tywin, as unimpressed as ever with Jaime's wit, simply lifted an eyebrow and pressed onward. “As befits a Lannister, you will be flown to Casterly Rock for your two week honeymoon. Do enjoy yourselves, because you will be flown back here to King's Landing at the end of it and put to work in the family business as you should have been since you were a teenager.” 

“But then I'd have so much less life experience, and where's the fun in that?”

“You far overvalue fun,” Tywin said. He glanced at Brienne. “Perhaps your new bride will be able to teach you the meaning of duty to your family.”

“I'm sure the new Mrs. Lannister will have many very serious and important life lessons for me that she's learned at the ripe old age of... How old are you anyway?” Jaime asked, turning to Brienne. 

“Twenty-three.”

“Twenty-three. A veritable crone. Can't imagine why you haven't been married off already.” 

Brienne and Tywin were both glaring at him, but he ignored them in favor of his brother and twin, who were pushing their way forward. Tyrion looked drunk and amused, Cersei looked drunk and annoyed. She'd been hoping Jaime would give everything up so that all of his money and corporate position would go to her instead. She'd done her best to try to talk him out of it, even trying to convince him to join the bloody City Watch or the Kingsguard rather than get married. 

“You'd rather be shackled to some random woman?” Cersei had screeched when Jaime had told her he'd accepted their father's deal. 

“A woman is warmer than a cloak,” Jaime had told her, and then he'd ducked to avoid the vase she'd thrown at him. 

“You actually went through with it,” Cersei said darkly. 

“Imagine our surprise!” Tyrion hiccuped, delighted. 

“I like to keep everyone on their toes.”

Cersei gave Brienne a truly disdainful once-over. “Looks like you'll need to be the one on your toes to reach your wife.” 

“I consider it daily calisthenics,” Jaime said, unbothered. “Just like you do hourly bicep curls pouring yourself more wine.” 

That dragged all of Cersei's dagger-eyed anger back onto him, where it belonged. Jaime didn't know anything about the woman besides him except her name and that the freckled skin of her cheek was soft, but it was unlikely she deserved Cersei's vicious rage. 

“You're enjoying this, aren't you?” Cersei hissed. 

“So far, yes, actually.” 

“I'm sure you'll enjoy lying next to this beast in bed tonight, too.” 

“Cersei,” Tywin snapped, and her spine went rigid. “Thank the gods Jaime agreed to this so the family doesn't have to rely on the two of you.” 

“Yes, because reliability is precisely what Jaime is known for,” Tyrion said dryly, hefting the small silver flask clutched in his hand in a toast. 

“He will do more for this family than a drunken lecher like you.” 

Brienne gasped, and all four Lannisters turned to look at her. She looked genuinely offended, and shocked, and maybe a little sad. _She has no idea what she's gotten herself into_ , Jaime thought. 

Tywin attempted to look down his nose at Brienne, but he was nowhere near tall enough, so he grimaced and inclined his head sharply. “Congratulations,” he said. “Your ride is waiting for you outside.” 

He ushered Cersei and Tyrion off as well, not allowing them any last verbal slashes, and Jaime met Brienne's gaze. Those blue, blue eyes were growing slowly shiny with a complete understanding of her new situation. 

“Welcome to the family,” Jaime said, shrugging.

* * *

It took fifteen minutes to escape the well-wishes of the rest of the Lannisters, Brienne standing silent and mostly unmoving except to accept the occasional handshake. She had heard as many stories of the Lannisters as the next society family, but she'd been distant from the reality of them at home on Tarth. To see them in action, the active dislike they had for each other, the hard glint of their matching eyes, was an entirely different experience. 

Jaime was smooth and unruffled by all of it, a rogue's smile on his handsome face, a quip always ready on his tongue. She was just starting to get a headache when the young page from earlier came up to her with kind eyes and handed her a glass of water. 

“Thank you,” she told him. He waited while she drained it in a few big gulps and then handed the glass back. “What's your name?” 

“Podrick Payne,” he said with a slight stutter. 

“I appreciate your kindness, Podrick,” she said, and then had to press her lips together to hold back sudden tears. The last of the Lannisters were joking around with Jaime, and by the time he'd seen them off, Brienne had recovered herself. 

“I suppose it's time to be whisked away for our romantic honeymoon, Mrs. Lannister,” he said, giving he an overly cheerful smile. 

“I will not be taking your last name,” she said. “That was part of the agreement.” 

“Not officially, but you'll always be Mrs. Lannister in my heart.” 

“Must you joke about _everything_?” she snapped. “Do you realize what we've done today?”

“Better than you, I think,” Jaime said. He was still smiling, loose and carefree, but his eyes were very serious. “You're consorting with lions now, sweetling, and I don't think you're prepared at all.” 

“Don't call me that either,” she grumbled, pushing past him to the door out of the sept. 

“What can I call you then?” 

“Brienne will do.” 

Jaime scoffed. “Boring. Just like you.” 

“How would you know? We've known each other two hours.” 

They climbed into the car, Brienne struggling with the skirt of her dress until Jaime bunched it up and shoved it into her lap. It filled the backseat of the car, crinoline and silk everywhere. 

“The very second you do something that surprises me, sweetling, I promise I will do anything you want in return.” 

Brienne eyed him carefully. “You swear?”

Jaime held up his hand. “You have my word.” 

She didn't trust that he would hold to it, but she tucked that away in case it proved to be useful for later. The car started with quiet elegance and the driver moved them smoothly into traffic, heading for the airport. Unsure of how much the man could hear, overwhelmed by the growing weight of her new life, Brienne stared out at the streets of King's Landing without saying word. Jaime blessedly remained silent, too, and she wondered if a newly married couple had ever been so unhappy. 

Brienne had always hoped that someday she'd get married, but had assumed it would be for love. She'd dreamed of finding a man who didn't care about her size or her looks, who might even love Tarth as much as she did and would be happy to marry and live there with her. Someone that would make her happy and her father proud. It was the twenty-first century, it didn't seem _that_ unreasonable of a dream. 

But perhaps for her it always had been. 

They pulled into a private entrance to the airport and she realized they were taking a private jet to Casterly Rock. The Lannisters were the kind of rich she couldn't even imagine, and it was that that she held onto now. They had enough money not just to save Tarth but to improve it. Dealing with Jaime Lannister for the rest of her life would be worth it if she could get the aquatic reserve up and running, expand the island's economy and save its people. 

She rolled out of the car again with Jaime's help, and then panicked at the bottom of the stairs up onto the plane. 

“I don't have any clothes!” she shouted over the engine noise. 

“It's fine, there will be some for you on the plane, and at the Rock.” 

“How?”

Jaime made a twirling gesture with his hand, like he was a king making a proclamation. “You're a Lannister now. People anticipate your needs before you even have them.” 

“That sounds terrible.” 

“You get used to it. Come on, I'm hungry and there's food for us on the plane.” Jaime bounded up the stairs, moving with a lithe grace that was impressive. He may be a useless playboy, but he was in good shape. 

She was in good shape, too, though it was hard to tell with the dress to wrestle. Fortunately, Jaime was correct – there were jeans and a button-down shirt folded neatly in her seat, sneakers at the foot of it, and a bathroom big enough to actually change in. The entire plane was mouth-open-in-astonishment luxurious, but Brienne attempted to rein herself in. She must not have been entirely successful, though, given the smug way Jaime smiled when she re-took her seat. 

They were in solo seats across the aisle from each other, and he leaned into her space. “Pretty impressive, right? At least you married up.” 

Brienne rolled her eyes. “Put your seatbelt on,” she said, clicking her own into place.

It wasn't until they were safely in the air, a bottle of water in her cupholder, a tray of fresh fruits and cheeses in front of her, that she finally broached the question she'd been waiting to ask him. 

“So tell me,” Brienne said, after glancing around the cabin to confirm they were alone. “What's your plan?” 

Jaime stopped with a grape at his lips and blinked at her, confused. “My plan?”

“Yes. You said before we get married that you had a plan. I assume it's a plan about,” she waved her hand vaguely between them, “our arrangement.” 

“Oh.” Jaime popped the grape in his mouth and chewed and it was truly unfair he was so attractive and so aware of it. He licked his lips and she jerked her gaze away quickly. “The plan is in process,” he said. 

“Are you going to tell me about it?” 

“When you need to know.” 

Brienne glared at him. “What if I could help you with it? Neither of us wants to be married to a total stranger, but we both need to be to get what we want. There's got to be some way we can make all this work. Some sort of provision we overlooked. If you fake your death, could I get the money and then split half of it with you?”

Jaime laughed, loud and startled. “You think we'll be able to trick Tywin Lannister into believing that I died a week into this marriage and there's no body?” 

“I didn't say it had to be a week,” she grumbled. 

“I admire your optimism, sweetling.” 

Brienne glared at him and shoved a hunk of cheese in her mouth. “My name is Brienne.”

“Yes, so you've said.” He reclined his seat almost completely, which Brienne observed in amazement. She didn't know airplane seats could even do that. Then he folded his hands over his trim stomach and shut his eyes. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. 

One eye popped back open, the green bright and annoyed. “Trying to take a nap.” 

“But we have to plan!” she hissed. 

“Relax. We have our whole lives to figure it out.” He shut his eyes again and turned on his side, putting his back to her. 

She did not push him out of the emergency door, though she spent most of the flight imagining it. Brienne would not put Tarth in danger, and Jaime was clearly uninterested in either sharing his plan or – as was more likely – even had one to begin with. Which meant, as usual, it would be on Brienne to do the work. 

Fortunately, Brienne was a Tarth, built for hard work and a steady hand, and now she had all of Jaime's money available to her. She would figure this out, with or without him.


	18. Collected answers from the Date Tag Writing Meme (all Jaime/Brienne)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On tumblr I did a meme where people picked a day of the year based on trope tags associated with each month and day, and then I wrote a few sentences to a few paragraphs for each one. They're mostly pretty short, so I've collected all of them here. Mix of book canon and modern AU. Hard T rating at the most.

**Aug 3: Canon-compliant with plot twists**

“You must come with me,” Brienne had told him, and he’d gone without asking why. She had been so wounded, not just in body but in soul. Jaime was not certain where Brienne was taking him, but he was certain he needed to be at her side, wherever it was.

Two days in, Jaime realized Brienne was not eating when they stopped, and she never seemed to drink, and when he went to relieve himself she sat on her horse, staring dully forward. He watched her more closely for another day and it was true: she sat her horse without fail, only dismounting to give their mounts a break, and she spoke very little. That night around the fire, he shoved food into her hands and she stared up at it like she was confused to its purpose.

“What’s wrong with you, wench?” Jaime snapped, taking a seat near her by the fire. “You’ve eaten nothing for three days. Even your enormous body can’t live on stores alone.”

Brienne continued to stare at the food in her hands. “I don’t need food,” she whispered with her rough voice, “for I no longer live.”

* * *

**November 3 - Pining with plot twists**

She loved him from the first moment she saw him, shining so brightly and with so much fierce energy that even kings had to look away. She loved him in silence, for how could she speak? She loved him from afar, because Jaime was the sun and she was the moon.

* * *

**July 8 - Alternate Universe with characters who are bad at feelings**

“You couldn’t have told me this before?”

“Before which part? The volcanic eruption, the flooding rains, or the killer fucking bees?”

“Before I agreed to marry Hyle!”

* * *

**May 16 - Hurt/Comfort with soulmates**

Brienne cradled Jaime’s wounded arm to her chest with one hand, brushed the sweaty locks of hair back from his forehead with the other.

“You can’t remove a soulmark, surely you know that,” she told him gently. He was so pale, his eyes and hair dark. It was as though the golden light of him was bleeding out.

“But I don’t want to be with her,” he gasped. He should be sleeping soon, the poppymilk starting to work, but Jaime’s eyes were still so bright. They looked lit with magic fire against the rest of his washed out face, fierce and determined. Like he could bend reality itself just with his wanting.

“I told you: you don’t have to be. The soulmark guides our lives, but it does not define them. Get some rest. I will be here when you wake.”

* * *

**March 28 - smut with confessions**

Jaime had expected her to be shy, so when she stiffened at the first brush of his fingers over her abdomen, he didn’t take it personally. In the firelight, Brienne looked softer somehow, her pale lashes turning golden over the wide pools of her eyes. He moved his hand around her side and this time she lurched a little away from him, and Jaime hesitated. She’d seemed so eager after their kiss, had been open-mouthed with want when they’d worked together to remove each other’s shirts.

He brushed his knuckles down the side of her neck and her shoulders came up and she-

“Are you _giggling_?” he asked, gaping at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, biting down hard on her lip. Brienne gnawed on it for a second longer and then sighed. “I am…ticklish.”

Jaime pulled his head back and took in her tall, powerful body with fresh eyes. The bear scars, the mottled skin at her throat, the wound at her cheek, not to mention the nicks and cuts of all her time on the road since they’d met. The muscles that were far too visible now that they were slowly starving together up in the north waiting for the Others. All of the hurts and hardships and she was _ticklish_.

He grinned, and Brienne’s eyes widened. “Well,” Jaime said, wiggling his fingers at her. “I shall have to discover every one of your ticklish spots.”

* * *

**March 31 - smut with post-break up**

She shouldn’t, she knows she shouldn’t, but it’s been two years and he looks better than she remembers and _gods_ his mouth is still both the worst and best thing about him.

“Not here,” she whispers because they party is just outside the bathroom he’s locked them in and she doesn’t think Margaery would appreciate them having sex on her sink.

“Yes, here,” Jaime says, dragging his tongue down the long v slit at the front of her dress and she’s becoming more willing to change her mind on the no-sex-in-bathrooms stance. But Margaery had been the one who’d talked her into this dress - “show him you don’t give a fuck about him anymore, Brie!” she’d encouraged as she’d shoved Brienne into the fitting room to try it on - and Brienne feels like she owed it to her friend to not make her regret it.

“Wait, wait,” Brienne says and Jaime stops, though he grumbles about it from where he’s kneeling down at her feet, his hands halfway up her thighs. “Where did you even _go_?”

That isn’t what she’d _meant_ to say, but now that it‘a out there she‘s glad of it. He tilts his head to look up at her, and frowns.

“Somewhere I never should have: away from you.”

She’s forgotten those perfectly placed arrows of sincerity he was capable of. “Fuck off.”

He squeezes her thighs. “It’s true,” Jaime says quietly.

“Why did you come back?”

He nuzzles into the slope of her stomach. “To rectify my mistake.”

* * *

**June 23 - Roommates with kink discovery**

“Brienne.” Jaime’s voice floated out from the hallway, and he sounded…weird. Like he’d seen a ghost or an especially huge cockroach.

“What?” she called back. It had been a long day and she wasn’t getting up for ghosts or cockroaches, unless they were going to threaten Jaime’s life, and even then, it would have to be immediately threatening.

“What is this?” he asked, and she heard his slow footsteps as he entered the living room.

“What is, uh, shit,” she said as she noted what he was holding. Suddenly she wasn’t tired at all and she leapt to her feet, yanking it out of his loose grasp. “I’m…I mean it’s….it’s not mine,” she nearly shouted.

“Then _whose is it_?” Jaime asked, confused and shocked and something else she wasn’t sure she could read.

Brienne stared down at it and clutched it to her chest. “It’s,” she sighed. “There was a guy, the one from the other day-”

“Fucking _Tormund_?” Jaime yelped. “You did that with _him_?”

“I wanted to do it and no one else was offering!” she snapped. “He said yes and we both enjoyed it. Why the hell do you care?”

“Because you didn’t even ask me!”

“Of course I didn’t ask you, Jaime, you’re my roommate,” she sighed. Like she could have even looked at him if she’d tried to ask. Brienne would have had to move out of the country.

“You should have asked me,” he said, and, oh, she recognized _that_ tone, though she’d never heard it directed towards her. “I would have said yes.”

* * *

**September 19 - Childhood friends with sharing a bed**

“It’s fine,” Jaime lied, when Brienne looked at him with a familiar mix of hope and worry, the way she’d looked for every favor she’d ever asked of him. Considering how much she felt she should be fighting the world alone, he could remember each rare, specific instance, and this face was the Ur-Instance. With good reason, he supposed, given what she was asking of him.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” she said.

“Then you shouldn’t have dared me to eat paste in kindergarten. Do you know how hard it was to open my mouth the rest of the afternoon?” The worry eased a little, the hope slid into relief, and Jaime’s heart thudded hard in his chest. “It’s not like we have a lot of other options here. No one knew Margaery was bringing her new girlfriend.”

A little furrow of annoyance formed between Brienne’s brows. Since it wasn’t directed at Jaime for once, he took the time to admire how cute it was. “I wish she’d warned us. We could have brought a cot or a sleeping bag or _something_.”

“We’ve known each other for twenty years, Bean, it’ll be fine.” He’d started calling her that in grade school, when Tyrion had been two and unable to say ‘Brienne.’ “Besides, it’s much better than sleeping on the couch and you sharing the room with Loras.”

Brienne shuddered a little. “You’re saving me,” she admitted. “Although maybe it would be less scandalous since he’s gay.”

“Gods know the Tyrells are known for hating scandal,” Jaime said dryly.

Brienne shoved him a little, but she turned to the bed and put her hands on her hips, examining it. “I hope we both fit,” she said thoughtfully.

Jaime moved to stand next to her, bumping his elbow into hers. “We’ll just have to get close,” he said. She turned abruptly away, and the nape of her neck was red.

“I’m gonna get ready,” she mumbled, grabbing her bag and hurrying to the private bathroom.

“Okay,” he told the suddenly closed door. “Weird.” He shrugged and pulled off his shirt, searched around in his bag for his sweat pants and then had the whole thing dumped out on the dresser when he couldn’t find them. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” he sighed. He’d forgotten to pack them, it seemed, though he had four pairs of underwear and a pair of dress slacks for some reason. Jaime had been so distracted with the work his father had dumped on him when he was supposed to be leaving for the trip that he’d barely had time to pack before Brienne was dragging him out the door so they wouldn’t miss the last ferry to Tarth. And Jaime was _not_ going to miss this trip with Brienne.

“Hey Bean,” he said, turning towards the bathroom door when it opened, “do you have any…uh.” She stood there, arms hanging loose at her sides, staring at him. “When did you start sleeping in _that_?” Jaime asked.

She was wearing a white cotton tank top with obviously no bra underneath, and shorts so high up her legs he could have measured the length of her thighs with four handspans and still not touched fabric. Just the thought of putting his hand on all that pale, freckled skin had him swallowing hard.

“I always sleep like this,” she said, wrapping her arms around her torso, and now he could see the curve of her biceps in sharp relief. Twenty years they’d been friends, and Jaime had, for the most part, been able to ignore his more base urges towards her because he loved her and respected the fact she only wanted to be friends, and he wanted her in his life in whatever way he could get her. But this…this was just cruel.

Bed-sharing was about to get way more complicated.

* * *

**February 19 - fluff with sharing a bed (sequel to the above)  
**

“Did you want something?” Brienne asked, and Jaime tried to think of anything besides an entirely inappropriate version of _you_ as an answer. He looked around the room and then down at his feet and remembered his dilemma.

“Pants!” She winced and Jaime lowered his voice. “Sorry. I didn’t pack any sweatpants or anything. I was too scattered when I left. Do you have anything I can borrow to sleep in?”

“I don’t,” she said apologetically. “I only brought these, since it’s summer. It’s always hot here in the summer.”

Of course it was, Jaime groaned internally. That meant three days of her in those shorts, and him having to lie next to her in bed in his uncomfortable jeans. Or those dress slacks, he supposed. Or one of his four pairs of underwear. 

“I guess we better get into bed,” Brienne said, edging towards it as she talked. “Do you have a preferred side?”

“No, I usually just sleep in the middle of mine.”

“What about when you have, um,” her cheeks were pink and red, unevenly colored as an apple. “Women over.”

Jaime snorted. “I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

She was staring at him with such disbelief he was vaguely offended. “I don’t,” he repeated firmly. “Geeze, Bean, how long have we known each other? You know I don’t sleep around.”

Or she did, at least, before they’d both gotten so busy in the last couple of years that they hadn’t seen each other much at all. It was why he’d wanted to come on this trip so badly. He _missed_ her.

“Okay, well, if you don’t care then I, um, I like to sleep on the right side.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jaime said, considering his pants dilemma again as Brienne sat down on the bed. Then a sudden thought hit him and he couldn’t think of anything else.

Did she have a side of the bed because she had men over?

He stared at Brienne as she set her book down, pulled down the covers and slid her long legs under them, then scrunched her face and pulled them both back out.

“Too hot,” she said when she caught him staring.

“Do whatever you want,” he said too sharply, and she narrowed her eyes but didn’t say anything.

Jaime went around to the other side of the bed and sat down, but he was sweating already in his jeans, and lying next to Brienne all night was only going to make that situation worse. Annoyed and frustrated and consumed with a question he knew was entirely inappropriate to ask, he stood and took his pants off. At least his boxers were longer than Brienne’s shorts.

When he turned back to get in, Brienne was gaping, open-mouthed, at him.

“What?” he asked. “Never seen a man in boxers before?”

“No I-I-I,” she grabbed her book and yanked it open, staring intently. “I was just surprised.”

“Surprised that I wear underwear at all?” he asked dryly, and he saw the blush spread down her long neck, across her chest and to her exposed shoulders. He’d missed all of her so much, it took every ounce of willpower not to scoop her into his arms and just hold her. Or more, if she’d let him, but she’d never seemed interested in more than friendship before. She’d certainly never looked at him with quite that wide-eyed look on her face; he would know, he’d been searching for it for years.

Maybe she’d changed in the last two years, too.

Jaime flopped down onto the bed and rolled onto his side to face her. “What are you reading?”

“A book,” she mumbled.

“What’s it about?”

“If you’d let me read it, I could tell you.”

“It looks like you’re halfway through. You don’t know yet?”

Brienne slammed it shut and huffed at him. “What do you want?”

“I’m just talking to you. It’s been a long time, and we haven’t done this in ages.”

“We’ve never done this,” Brienne said, gesturing at the two of them.

“You mean sleep together?” Jaime said, pitching his voice lower to see if it only annoyed her or something else.

Brienne went bright red and bit her bottom lip, but her pupils were dark and she definitely looked all up and down his body before she looked away.

Jaime tried as hard as he could to not get too turned on by it.

“We can talk in the morning. Good night, Jaime,” she said, turning off the light and curling onto her side, facing away from him. The moonlight was enough that he could see the outline of her shape.

“Aw, Bean, come on, at least tell me a bedtime story.”

Her shoulders shook and he heard her snort of laughter. “Once upon a time, there was a handsome and annoying prince who wouldn’t let his royal subjects go to sleep ever. Exhausted and angry, they murdered him and set up a democratic form of government and everyone lived happily ever after. The end.”

“You think I’m handsome,” Jaime said, and as he’d hoped she flopped onto her back to glare at him.

“Still need your ego stroked, I see.”

“I like stroking,” he said. She opened and then shut her mouth several times, before turning back on her side.

“Go to sleep,” she commanded.

“I’m not tired. It’s nine o’clock, who goes to bed at nine at night?”

“People who have early morning jobs.”

“We’re on vacation, live a little.” He scooched a little closer. “Tell me a secret.”

It was a game they’d played since they were little, the two of them talking under tables and bleachers, in closets and bedrooms, over quiet meals and in the middle of loud sports events. One of them - usually Jaime - would ask for a secret, and Brienne would tell him something silly, like she had a pet unicorn no one else could see, and then she’d ask him to tell her one.

When they’d been teenagers, he’d told her about Aerys. A few years ago, she’d told him about Connington.

He had only one secret he wanted to tell her tonight.

“I can’t think of any,” she said in a shaky, high voice.

“Not one? There’s nothing you’ve been waiting two years to tell me?” he breathed into her ear. She shivered a little, and his attempts at not getting turned on failed spectacularly.

“There’s one thing,” she said softly, and then she took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “I have a crush on…on someone.”

Jaime’s pulse sped up. “Someone? Should we play twenty questions to figure out who it is?”

She didn’t say no, so he asked, “Is it a man?”

Brienne nodded.

“Is he on this trip?”

Another nod.

He licked his lips. “Is he in love with Renly Baratheon?”

“I don’t know,” Brienne said, and then she turned on her back to face him. She looked terrified. “Are you?”

Jaime’s face split with a wide smile. “No, not since third grade when he gave me a signed baseball for my birthday that I discovered he had signed himself.”

Brienne laughed a little, but the nervous terror still had her in its grip.

“It’s my turn,” he told her. “Ask me.”

“Tell me a secret,” she whispered, her eyes scanning his face.

“I really want to kiss my best friend.”

The movement of her throat when she swallowed distracted him from his own anxiety for a moment. “Is your best friend a woman?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“Yes.”

“Is she on this trip?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling.

“Is she…in love with you?”

Jaime leaned closer, their mouths a breath apart. “I don’t know. Are you?”

“For longer than two years,” she said just before rising up to press her lips to his.

The bed-sharing turned out to not be a problem at all.

* * *

**March 1 - smut with characters as parents**

The whine she’d been fighting back for the last few minutes finally escaped, sharp and quickly bit off, but Jaime’s fingers went still inside her.

“Shh,” he hushed her gently, his breath hot against her neck. They were curled around each other on the couch, the television turned low. “If you wake the baby, then you’ll never get to the good part.”

“This is a good part,” she gasped as he slid his fingers out and back in again.

“But it gets _much_ better,” he murmured. She glanced at the video monitor on the coffee table, but their daughter was still sound asleep. Brienne just hoped she’d stay that way. She’d been looking forward to the better part tonight. 

* * *

**November 28 - pining with confessions**

“Why now?” Brienne asked, rain dripping down her face as she stood at the foot of Jaime’s porch. He was under the overhang, warm and dry and perfect. Nothing like her, bedraggled and unwanted.

“Why now what?” he asked. He had his arms folded over his chest, and he was glaring at her, like she was forcing his hand, but he’d been the one to send the text. He’d been the one to say the words first, not her.

“Why are you telling me this now, when my flight leaves in an hour? Did it just happen? Did you fall in love with me _yesterday_?”

Jaime scoffed. “No.”

When nothing more seemed forthcoming, Brienne checked her watch again and wanted to cry, but she wasn’t going to throw everything away on a text message. “I’ve gotta go,” she said, turning away.

“It wasn’t yesterday,” he called out above the rain. Brienne shook her head, but she heard his feet on the steps, and when she turned back he was so close she took a step backward in surprise. It was raining harder, his shirt starting to cling to his shoulders. Even rain made him look good. “It wasn’t last week. It wasn’t a month ago or six months or a year. It’s been as long as I’ve known you. Before that, even. The whole of my life.”

“That’s impossible,” she choked out. “You’re impossible. You always do this.”

“I never do this, that’s the problem,” he said, wrapping his hands around her shoulders, holding her in place. “Don’t get on the plane, Brienne. I know I fucked this up but, please. Don’t go.”

(She doesn't go that night. The next day they go together.)

* * *

**January 17 - Angst with fake dating (prequel to the above)  
**

“I’m dating Hyle,” Brienne told him, and she watched Jaime’s whole face fall.

“Hyle? Why? When?”

“A couple of months ago,” she lied. She and Hyle weren’t dating - had never dated at all, though Hyle had tried. But she didn’t know how else to tell Jaime no, when he knew all the ways to make her crack apart for him.

“Go out with me,” he’d begged her, and she wanted to say no, but his eyes were bloodshot, his clothes a mess, and he meant too much to Brienne for her to be his rebound.

“Dump him,” Jaime said. “I know you love me.”

Brienne blinked back tears. “I do. But you don’t love me.”

“I could.”

Brienne swiped at one stray tear and shook her head. “I’m dating Hyle and he’s good to me. I can’t do this, Jaime. I’ve gotta go. We’re going out to dinner tonight. I need to get changed.” She didn’t even let him say goodbye, just shut the door on him and pressed her forehead to the door, her shoulders shaking with silent tears.

* * *

**April 6 - enemies to lovers with characters as project partners**

“She’s too inexperienced.”

“He’s not in touch with the latest research.”

“She doesn’t take direction well.”

“He doesn’t take suggestions at all.”

“She’s bossy.”

“He’s lazy.”

“She’s cranky.”

“He smells.”

Jaime held his hands out in shock. “I do not _smell_. Take that back.”

Brienne rolled her eyes at him but even as she opened her mouth to score the winning point, Catelyn heaved an enormous sigh and shoved back from her desk, standing and drawing their full attention.

“Do you know,” she said slowly, “that I have seen both of your human resources records?”

They shared an uneasy glance and nodded together.

“And are you both aware that you are both legally adults?”

Brienne flushed. “Catelyn-”

“No more excuses. From either of you. You will work together to solve this problem, or you will work separately at different companies. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Catelyn,” Brienne said, genuinely chastised. Jaime just grumbled snottily next to her. Catelyn must have been in a more forgiving mood than her severe face indicated, because she let it slide.

“Good. Then get out of my office and get to work.”

They turned and headed for the door together, a brief, short foot-race to see who could get there first. Jaime won that one, mostly because Brienne was trying not to look like she was racing him. He burst through and didn’t even hold the door for her.

Gods, she hated Jaime Lannister. And now they would have to work side-by-side for the next however many weeks. A life working at her dad’s fishing shack was looking better by the minute. But Jaime was at her desk, his eyes already lit in challenge and she was not going to give up before he did.

* * *

**June 23 - roommates with kink discovery**

Brienne eyed the entrance to the library. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious.”

“They have intro courses to…you know, here?”

Jaime frowned at her. “What’s wrong with that? You love libraries.”

“Yeah, for books. Not for,” Brienne waved her hands in the air, knowing she was bright red but she’d already resigned herself to a state of constant mortification for the afternoon.

“Bondage lessons?” Jaime said far too loudly.

“Shhhhh. Someone might hear you.”

“We’re outside the library, Tarth, we can talk as loudly as we want. WE’RE GOING TO LEARN SEXY ROPE TYING,” he hollered and Brienne covered her face.

“I regret agreeing to this.”

“Aw,” Jaime said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and tugging her towards the library. “You’re gonna be the bondage teacher’s pet with all that islander background. Maybe you can show me the ropes.” He poked her with his other hand. “Get it? The ropes?”

“I hate you so much,” she moaned as he opened the door and whisked her inside.

* * *

**November 12 - Pining with slice of life**

He walks by her apartment twice a day, once on the way to work, once on the way back home. Although Jaime has regular hours, his mystery neighbor-next-door doesn’t seem to, and he only runs into her about half the time, sometimes coming, sometimes going. They’ve shared an elevator once, and Jaime had kept his distance and resisted asking her her name, her job, and whether she knows he can hear her beautiful voice when she sings.

* * *

**April 28 - Enemies to lovers with confessions**

(Hah, this trope pairing is basically Jaime/Brienne in canon! So I went way off canon.)

“Put your weapon down!” Brienne shouted across the cargo bay. The target was in-between her and Jaime. She was hunched behind a stack of plastisteel being shipped to one of the outer systems. When she peeked around the edge, a laser went pinging just in front of her. “What the fuck are you doing? If you blow a hole in the hull we’ll both die.”

“ _You_ might,” he shouted back from behind his own wall of plastisteel. “But I’ve got a suit on.”

“You’re a liar,” she spit. “And even if you do, the target doesn’t.”

“You’ve got me there. But I’ve got a secret,” Jaime sing-songed.

Brienne slithered down onto her stomach and peered around, when no shot came, she carefully lined up her pistol and aimed where she thought he was. That bounty was _hers_ , she’d sworn to Catelyn she’d protect the target, and she would not let the infamous Kingslayer steal her first.

“Is it that you’ve got enough hot air to fly the two of you away?” Brienne muttered, just loudly enough he could hear her.

Jaime laughed. “It’s that I set the course to take us all into the side of the nearest asteroid. So if you don’t let me take her, she’ll die here anyway.”

* * *

**September 17 - Childhood friends with fake dating ([this one was fleshed out into a full fic here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214109))  
**

“Hi, Pumpkin,” Selwyn said when Brienne called him up for their weekly chat. “Hi, Jaime,” he added, spotting Jaime hovering in the back of the video call.

“Hi Mr. Tarth.”

Selwyn sighed, but he didn’t bother to try to correct Jaime. It had been fifteen years, nothing was going to change Jaime’s stance on that now. Jaime seemed to be obstinate on many fronts, the most frustrating of which was in regards to Brienne. He was there for most of their calls, and yet both of them insisted they were just friends.

Well. Selwyn was going to see if he couldn’t use a little leverage to shake them loose. 

He and Brienne chatted idly for a few minutes, catching up as they always did, Jaime piping in occasionally from where he was playing video games on the couch.

“I did have some news to share with you,” Selwyn finally said when the conversation lulled enough it didn’t seem forced. “For both of you, actually.”

Brienne gestured Jaime over, and he set down his controller and hovered over her shoulder, their faces pressed together at the cheek even though there was plenty of video space. His daughter’s free cheek went pink and it took all of Selwyn’s willpower to not roll his eyes. That would blow his cover on this.

“I’m inviting both of you to visit me and my partner on Tarth for the weekend.”

Brienne blinked at him. “Your partner? Like a business partner?”

“No, darling, like my boyfriend.”

Both of them went wide-eyed and then Jaime beamed. “Hey, congratulations, Mr. Tarth! Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Actually Jaime, it’s your dad.”

Both of the kids’ mouths dropped wide open in shock. Selwyn quietly took a screencap to share with Tywin later when they were working out the rest of the details of their fake relationship. Selwyn would share it with the kids, too, after the enforced family vacation that Selwyn and Tywin were praying would end with Jaime and Brienne figuring out what everyone else in the world knew.

* * *

**February 29 - Fluff with supernatural elements**

“Don’t be weird about this,” Jaime said, and Brienne made a face at him.

“I promise I won’t,” she said. “Unless you suddenly sprout wings from your back and start flying around.”

Jaime winced. “I wish you hadn’t been that specific,” he muttered as he took off his shirt and a huge pair of golden wings unfurled from his back. “Ta-dah.”

Brienne stared at him. She was silent. And gap-mouthed as a dying fish. Big-eyed as one, too. At least she wasn’t screaming. That was good.

She kept staring at him, even when he stretched his wings out. They’d been tucked away so long, it felt good to let the sunlight and breeze touch them.

She was still staring.

“Okay say _something_ ,” Jaime begged.

Brienne’s eyes were huge, but she didn’t look weirded out. She looked amazed. “Can I touch them?” she asked softly.

Jaime exhaled in relief. “Yes,” he said, turning and stretching one wing out to her. He didn’t even have to warn her to be gentle with them. He could trust her, and that was why he’d decided to show them to her in the first place.


	19. (J/B - book canon Date Tag meme prompt: Canon-compliant with Love Triangle)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had one more Date Tag Writing meme prompt come in. This one is book canon, post-ADWD. Canon-compliant with a love triangle. Yes, Hyle is involved but in this case he doesn't say a word. Angsty, I suppose, but I promise it all turns out all right in the end.

**August 30 - canon compliant with love triangle**

“You’re more sullen than usual, wench,” Jaime said, riding up next to Brienne. They were on their way to Winterfell, their motley party of six riding with speed and purpose to return Sansa Stark to her ancestral home. Brienne had been staring at him with wounded, worried eyes since they’d left the Vale, certain he’d abandon them now that Sansa was in her grasp. But Jaime had no intention of abandoning Brienne until she was safe behind Winterfell’s dour walls.

When they woke up this morning, she’d refused to even look his way, and he’d thought perhaps, several days into their journey and past Pennytree once more, she trusted him. Except now everything was reversed - she wouldn’t meet his eyes, would not respond to his japes even to frown at him. It unnerved him this sudden and complete cutting off of her attention, the hole it left as gaping as the space his hand had been.

She merely grunted now, continuing to avoid his stare.

“Did I turn ugly overnight? You seemed fond enough of my appearance these days past,” Jaime said, and she could hear him because her skin went mottled.

“You look...well, Ser Jaime,” she mumbled, and he had to lean nearly off his horse onto hers to hear her.

“How could you tell when you haven’t looked at me once today? Do you even know what I’m wearing?”

“The same thing you always wear,” she snapped with enough bite he felt something anxious in his heart relax.

“Are you certain? I might have switched shirts with young Podrick. Or Hyle, perhaps.”

Her head shot up then and her blue eyes were lined with red, dark smudges underneath making them painfully beautiful. She glanced behind them and Jaime followed her gaze to Ser Hyle, who was sitting tall and smug upon his mount. For no reason at all, Jaime had a sudden urge to smash him in the face with his head. The hand would be far too impersonal.

“Whatever the hedge knight has said about me,” Jaime said, attempting for lightness, “surely you of all people must not be surprised by it. You know me, Lady Brienne.”

She looked at him again and Jaime regretted wishing she would. Her wide eyes were too hurt still, too vivid a looking glass.

“It was not about you, ser. It was about me.”

Jaime’s hand tightened on his reins, and his horse tossed its head, annoyed at the pressure. “Shall I take him down now, or wait until we camp for the night where we can bury the body?”

“It’s not like that. He... he has asked for my hand in marriage.” Brienne stared down at the neck of her own horse, her limp hair hanging down to hide her broad face.

“Then his words were only those of a man refused, like a spoiled child not getting some desired toy. Ignore them, they’re not worth the tongue they’re spoken.”

Her hair trembled about her chin when she shook her head. “I did not refuse him, ser,” she said in a voice soft and deadly as an assassin.

“You delayed your answer, then?” he asked, urgently.

She looked at him again and he knew the answer before she opened her too-wide lips to speak it. Jaime wheeled his horse away before he could let the cursed words settle in his ears, riding for the back of the line, past Podrick’s curious stare, and Sansa’s dead-eyed one; past Hyle smug and victorious and the Hound angry at the world. Jaime could have killed every one of them in that moment, spurred on simply by Brienne’s answer: _I told him yes._


	20. (J/B - modern AU Date Tag meme prompt: Smut with fake dating)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One last Date Tag Writing Meme prompt came in. This is neither as smutty nor as fake dating-y as it probably should be.

**March 17: Smut with fake dating**

"I have a favor to ask you."

Any time Jaime approached her with those words and that face, Brienne knew she was in trouble. "No," she said, looking purposefully back down at her phone. 

"I have a thing I need to research," he continued as if she hadn't spoken at all, "and in order to go, I have to have a partner." 

"That's sad for you."

"It is. But you could help make me happy if you go with me." 

Brienne sighed. "What is it?" she asked, steeling herself to look directly at him. When they'd first met, she'd been flustered by his handsomeness for approximately three and a half seconds until he'd opened his mouth. Then she'd spent time hating his face. Then it became something she missed when he wasn't around hassling her. Eventually she grew fond of his face, and the man behind it. The problem was that that fondness had expanded into something much less just friends and much more 'I want to kiss you' and she was right back to being flustered again. 

He fluttered his unfairly long eyelashes at her. "Now don't say no right off the bat."

"I already did and you ignored it," she reminded him.

"That one didn't count, you hadn't even heard what I'm asking yet. So picture this: you and me, going undercover as a couple, dressing up in fancy outfits to go to a very swanky, very exclusive party. Sounds good so far right?"

Brienne narrowed her eyes at him. He knew she secretly loved fancy parties, even if she could never find a dress she liked enough to wear to one. "Sort of. What's the catch?"

"Catch?" He laughed in such a high, fake manner, Brienne instantly went on alert. "It's minor at best."

"Jaime."

"The party also happens to maybe be a... sex party."

"A _what?_ "

"It's for my next crime novel, I swear. You know I can't write well about it if I don't have some direct experience." 

"Set it in a gym, then!" 

Jaime snorted. "Boring. Besides, this novel includes a very emotional journey for Detective Blue, one that's been a long time coming. It has to be at a sex party. This is going to be my best one yet, I promise you."

He looked earnest, his green eyes bright and uncomplicated. It had taken a lot of years to get to uncomplicated with Jaime. Pretending to be his girlfriend at a sex party would twist everything back up. But she knew how much this novel series, and his main character, meant to him. 

“Swear to me I do not have to sleep with anyone,” she insisted, and he burst into a huge smile. 

"I swear. It's not a partner swap thing, but they don't want single people coming just to be weird lookie-loos. Everything will be strictly voluntary. I’m not going to sleep with anyone either, I’m only going for the research." 

“You better devote half of your author’s note to me when this gets published,” she groused. 

“All of it,” he said, kissing her cheek. He was so casual with his physical intimacy it would be easy to pretend they were dating. Far too easy, which was the most dangerous part about agreeing to this favor.

"I'm gonna regret this," she sighed and he patted her shoulder. 

"Trust me, B, I'll make sure you have a good time." 

That promise didn't help anything.

* * *

The house was secluded and enormous, a mansion built in the middle of acres of perfectly tended forest. 

"Are you sure this isn't a murder party?" Brienne had whispered to Jaime when they'd approached the towering front door. 

“Positive,” he'd whispered back, his lips so close to her ear they brushed it.

Apparently he'd been right. The so-called sex party had been almost disappointingly boring so far. There'd been mingling in a huge ballroom with expensive drinks and food, and pleasant music piped over the speakers that a few couples danced to, but not many. She and Jaime had stayed side-by-side the entire time, which meant she'd gotten to watch him turn down multiple women, men, and groups, pointing to Brienne with the same, seemingly genuine, enthusiasm each time as he'd said, “We came to be together tonight, sorry.” 

When Brienne couldn't take another disbelieving stare, she'd excused herself to the restroom. Jaime had pointed the way and then pointed at one of the doors in the hallway off of the ballroom and said he'd be waiting for her in there so they could compare notes. She wasn't sure what kind of notes he'd have having been at her side all night, but maybe he was going to keep himself busy while she got lost on her way to and from the bathrooms. 

Brienne tried what she thought was the door he'd pointed to, but it opened to the sight of one woman in some sort of strappy swing hanging from the middle of the ceiling with another woman kneeling in front of her and--

“Oh! Sorry!” Brienne yelped, slamming the door shut behind her. 

Wrong room. 

All of the doors looked the same, which meant she was now engaged in the world's kinkiest game of Let's Make A Deal. 

Door number two had a man and a woman, and a paddle. 

Door number three had three men and two women and they gestured for her to join them. “We needed a third woman!” one of the men said, smiling enticingly at her. Brienne scanned them to make sure none of them was Jaime and excused herself saying she had somewhere else to be. 

It went on like that for ten minutes. Out of thirteen doors, she was invited to join eight of the parties inside, until it was so routine that she wasn't even blushing anymore as she said she was looking for her partner. Most of them nodded in understanding, but a few looked remarkably disappointed that she wouldn't stay. 

These people might be way too rich – she'd seen at least three gold-plated sex toys in her room examinations – and far more sexually experimental than Brienne had ever been, but she appreciated the fact that none of them laughed at or were disgusted by her. She was, in fact, feeling a small, growing, pleasant vibration in her body with each new room scene, with the noises and the smells that greeted her. When the fourteenth room couple invited her to watch, she hovered in the doorway for a few minutes, appreciating the way the way their bodies moved together as they kissed on the rug on the floor, until she became uncomfortably aware of her own rising wants, and she quietly backed out and shut the door. She took a few deep breaths in the hallway and then opened the second-to-last door in the hallway. 

Inside was a huge, soft-looking bed with four fuzzy-lined cuffs on it, a small chest at the foot of the bed, and Jaime, standing and wringing his hands together nervously. 

“There you are!” they both said at the same time. 

Brienne entered and shut the door behind her with a huge sigh of relief, leaning back against it. “You do not know how many people's naked bodies I've just seen.” 

Jaime's bright smile flickered a little. “Were you... with other people?” 

“No, no, no. No.” She flushed red, amazed she still could at this point. “No. I was looking for you, and you did a terrible job of pointing out the right door.” 

He shrugged, sheepish. “I didn't know all the rooms would be taken already. I was starting to think maybe you'd decided to try out the sex party for yourself.” 

“Are you kidding? Who would want me to?” she said automatically, laughing a little. Although, there had been quite a few people who had seemed like they wanted her to. Brienne looked down at the simple, sparkling blue dress Jaime had helped her pick out. He'd paid to have it tailored, and she had to admit it was the nicest-looking she'd ever felt. Maybe the confidence helped. She looked back up at Jaime, who had gone very still and very tense. 

“I would,” he said, his voice low. 

“Oh,” she said, praying he wouldn't hear her dismay too clearly. He'd brought her because he'd wanted her to participate in the sex party. “Well. I'm not really, um, interested in doing that with, with any of those people, but if you had other plans I can go back to the ballroom. And if _you_ want to, uh, take part, you can, of course, I'm not really your girlfriend, so. You know.” She waved her hands helplessly at Jaime's furrowed brow. “I can point out the ones who were looking for new partners. Some of them seemed very, um, nice, I think, and anyone would be happy to have you--”

“Brienne.”

She pressed her lips together and let her hangs hand at her sides, still. “Yes, Jaime?” she squeaked. 

“I didn't mean I wanted you to go participate in the sex party _out there_.”

“Oh.” Her mind went quiet and she tried to figure out what he did want. Brienne realized suddenly that he didn't have his jacket on, and his cuffs were unbuttoned, and his tie was loose. She took a better look around the room. The sheets on the bed were turned down. The cuffs were attached to straps and laid out like someone could be bound in them at the ankles and wrists. There were a couple of slim condom packets on top of the chest. And Jaime's face--

“ _Oh_ ,” she breathed. 

That was a look she had never seen on his face before, a glint in his eyes that had never been directed at her, but it was impossible to misunderstand what he was thinking now, even if his erection wasn't giving her a flashing neon clue. 

“Did you really have to research a sex party?” she asked softly. 

“Yes. But I didn't have to bring a partner. I wanted to. I wanted to bring you.” 

She chewed her lip, uncertain. “Why?”

He smiled a little, fondly exasperated. “I was hoping it would make you think about having sex with _me_.”

“Well, you didn't have to go to all that trouble,” she said, and her voice only trembled a little. “I think about that already.” 

Jaime took a few steps nearer and Brienne pressed back against the door instinctively. He hesitated. “You can tell me no,” he said. “It won't ruin our friendship. I just might have to not sit so near you anymore when we watch shows together.” 

“I don't want to tell you no.” Her gaze flickered to the bed and then back to him. “I just don't think I want to use restraints for our first time.” 

He exhaled and smiled slowly. “You don't have to use them at all. This really was the only open room that actually had a bed. Although,” he shifted nearer, and she swayed towards him, her friend with the face she loved so much. “You're welcome to use them on me if you want.” 

The first time, she didn't.

But the second time, she did.


	21. Collected answers from the I Wish You Would Write... meme (all Jaime/Brienne)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I answered asks for the "I wish you would write..." meme on tumblr. These were the most story-like answers. Includes a Brienne-with-the-fish-verse follow-on, a brief Petrichor follow-on, and two new settings.

**teaandbanjo asked: I wish you would write the fic where Jaime is the one who knows how the coffee maker works.**

“Why is it beeping?” Brienne asked, pushing what she thought was the start button on the fancy new coffee machine at work. It only shrilled angrily at her every attempt to make it dispense anything at all.

Margaery squinted at it. “Does it have water?”

“It doesn’t need water, it’s self-contained. There’s no pot.”

“Did you put your mug on it?” Sansa offered, not even looking up from her phone. “Sometimes they don’t work if you don’t put your mug on.”

“Of course I put my mug on.” Brienne shifted it a little, turning the handle to the right instead of the left just in case. It let her see the image of the small, sunglass-wearing cat with FLUFF YOU, YOU FLUFFIN’ FLUFF on it. She’d bought it on a whim on her solo vacation last summer, and it made her laugh every time.

“Just get hot chocolate, I have a meeting in five,” Margaery complained.

“I don’t want hot chocolate, I just want some nice, normal coffee. Like I have every day, except today, apparently.”

“Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays,” a rich, smooth male voice said, and Brienne rolled her eyes at the beeping coffee machine. Sansa straightened and put her phone down and Margaery fluffed up her breasts.

“Good morning, Jaime,” Margaery said in a voice that was much lower than normal.

“Good morning,” Sansa squeaked.

“Good morning, ladies,” he said. “I see you all are enjoying the new coffee machine.”

Brienne pressed another button on the machine and it made a decidedly unfriendly whirring noise before going quiet. “We would be if we could get it to work,” she grumbled, finally turning to face him. He looked perfect, as usual. Jaime Lannister had never had a case of the Mondays in his life.

“I have this same beast at home, I can help you,” he said, walking nearer. He even smelled good, his cologne subtle and tangy once she inhaled it.

“I can figure out a simple _coffee machine_ ,” Brienne snapped.

“Evidence suggests otherwise.” He reached past her, pressed one perfectly manicured finger on the same exact button she had, and coffee poured forth into her cup, hot and steaming and perfect. The nerve. She glared at the traitorous machine while Jaime grinned victoriously. “See? Maybe you were just pressing too hard with those big, strong hands of yours.”

_Maybe I should press them into your neck_ , she thought, but out loud she just muttered, “I guess.”

“Well, I’m always happy to rescue a maiden in need. You only have to ask next time, Tarth.” Why did his voice always drop to that register when he was talking to her? It was so deep and seductive even when he was talking about weekly reports and synergizing productivity.

“I don’t need you to make my coffee for me, Lannister.” He just lifted her mug out of the machine and handed it to her.

“Don’t forget your two creamers on the way out,” he said as she turned to go, and she hastily grabbed the packets, her friends following behind her, as she wondered over the fact he knew how she took her coffee.

(The mug in question:

)

* * *

**scoundrels-in-love asked: I would love to see how our dears would settle in the new world of Petrichor**

What’s next for our dears, though, is the reality of living together in the same physical space. It works out, of course, but the things they each discover about having the other person _right there_ instead of close but still far away are wondrous and banal both. There is the sheer act of touch - the ability to hold each other when they want, the way Jaime’s hair tickles her nose, how Brienne’s muscles feel under his palms. And also making space in the apartment that had previously been only them. Bumping into each other in the kitchen over breakfast. Sharing the study with her books on one side and his antiques on the other, until they start to intermingle as their lives become more entwined. The bed situation. They get a king-sized, first off, and Jaime picks the sheets but Brienne insists on picking the comforter. They both slept in the middle of their own beds - there was no need to pick a side before - so they work out which feels right for them. Duncan takes up most of the space in the middle, and he’s loudly disgruntled every time Jaime shoves him off the bed when he reaches for Brienne in the night. Duncan still stares at Jaime all the time, enraptured, though he only will snuggle with Brienne until a year into it, when she’s gone for the weekend to visit her father, and Jaime and Duncan are both lonely without her. (He has spent a lifetime alone, but a weekend away from Brienne is an eon now.) They’re watching a movie. Duncan creeps over to Jaime’s lap and allows Jaime to rest his hand on his back. After that, Jaime is allowed to pet Duncan at will. 

They worry this will all go away as quickly as it arrived lingers for awhile. They live with that anxiety every day, holding on a little too tightly, pulses racing when a storm comes near. Eventually, enough time passes they think: this is ours now, and they live.

* * *

**intoni asked: I wish you would write ... a sequel of any kind to Brienne WTF.**

After running Margaery through the paces of overseeing the fish store - five times, the last of which Margaery made noises about regretting ever pushing for Brienne to take a vacation - Brienne and Jaime flew to their destination. It was a lovely vacation. Plenty of sun, plenty of diving, plenty of wandering cobbled city streets eating ice cream and then tasting each other’s on their tongues. Two afternoons spent entirely in the hotel suite and naked for 99% of it, and lots of nights watching the stars from their balcony and holding hands and talking. There was also the one night they went for a night dive, which freaked Jaime out because the water was _very dark_ , but Brienne’s eyes glowing with excitement behind her mask were twin stars that made it all better.

Then of course their dive on the day before they left, which Jaime had arranged specially. To the spot in the book that he’d bought her from the aquarium, on a perfectly sunny day (he hadn’t arranged that, but he appreciated the assist from nature or the gods or whoever). Just the two of them and the fish in the water, and the ring he had secured with fishing line to his belt. He unrolled the line while Brienne was taking photos of the fish and when she turned around to wave excitedly to him at a sea turtle swimming by, he held out the ring and made the ‘okay’ signal with his free hand as a question.

A huge bubble exploded from her mask as she stared in wide-eyed shock. He was just starting to feel a little anxious when she nodded, then gave him the returned ‘okay’ signal so forcefully she accidentally hit the ring out of his hand. Fortunately, he’d left it tied to the fishing line, and she gestured for them to surface.

When they did, she ripped off her mask as they bobbed next to the boat.

“Did you just-?”

“Yes. Will you-?”

“Yes!”

They tried to embrace but it was awkward and they sank back into the sea before they recovered, beaming dopily at each other as they tread water.

“We can dive more if you want,” he said, and she shook her head so forcefully water drops went flying.

“I want to get back to land,” she said. “Right now. Please.”

Jaime grinned. She didn’t have to ask twice. They didn’t leave their room again until the next morning to get to the airport. They barely made it in time, and Brienne kept glancing at the ring on her finger the whole flight home.

* * *

**naomignome asked: I wish you would write the fic where Jaime and Brienne make out in a car like teenagers.**

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Jaime answered with a sly smile.

It didn’t make Brienne feel any better. They’d been dating for couple of weeks, and they’d known each other for a couple of years, and the reason they were going out at all was because Brienne trusted Jaime implicitly. But driving up a winding, forested road was not making her anxiety any quieter.

“I don’t feel like being axe-murdered tonight,” she said, trying to keep her tone light.

“No murdering, I promise.”

He pulled into a grassy area and inched his car towards the edge, overlooking the bright lights of King’s Landing in the distance. Brienne frowned when Jaime parked and shut off the headlights, then leaned back in the seat and looked at her.

“Did you take me to a make-out spot?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Maybe,” he said. He hadn’t stopped grinning since he picked her up. “Do you _want_ to make-out with me?”

It was an older model car, and the front seat was one long bench. Access was not an issue.

“This feels very teen movie,” she said, feeling her cheeks grow hot.

Jaime laid his arm along the back of the seat, his fingers tracing the line of her shoulder through the gauzy cotton shirt she wore. “But we don’t have to be home by midnight,” he murmured.

“My curfew was ten,” she said, flushing harder when he chuckled a little and leaned into her space.

“It’s only eight now,” he said near her ear. “That’s plenty of time.”

His other hand settled loose around her waist, and he studied her from very close, his face open and eager, but waiting for her word.

“Two hours is a lot of kissing,” she said, her voice embarrassingly breathy.

Jaime’s fingers crept under the hem of her shirt, caressing her. “We don’t just have to kiss.” His teeth tugged at her earlobe and she shivered a little, even though she was anything but cold.

And then they made out a bunch and got to third base before Jaime dropped her at home just slightly after 10, but no one seemed to mind, the end. 😁


	22. (J/B - modern AU Date Tag meme prompt: Smut with misunderstandings)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had one last Date Tag meme prompt to add! This is silly fun, there is no actual smut involved.

“You’re sure about this?” Jaime asked again (and again, and again) and Brienne nodded firmly.

“We’ll do it when you come home tonight,” she said, and though they’d been together for six glorious months, she still went pink in the cheeks when she talked around anything sex-related. Brienne flushed for very different reasons when they were in the act, but outside of the bedroom (kitchen) (bathtub) (the very cramped back of her car once) she seemed to forget that she’d just had her mouth all over him.

Fortunately, he was always more than happy to remind her.

Jaime kissed her goodbye, fast and fierce so he wasn’t any later to work, and passed his day in a sort of delirious haze as he imagined what would be waiting for him when he got home. They hadn’t talked about all the details yet, but that would be an excellent start to the foreplay.

By the time he stepped in the door, Jaime already had an erection and a bright smile, both of which faltered a little when he saw the living room. Brienne had shoved the furniture to the corners, which was intriguing, but there was a tarp in the middle of the living room and an alarming number of ropes of varying length and thickness lined up neatly all along it.

“Hey,” she said, beaming up at him from where she sat on the floor, fiddling with a smaller length of rope in her lap. “Welcome home.”

Jaime set his jacket and shoes and keys aside and went to kiss her, sinking down onto the floor next to her. “You’ve been busy,” he said.

“I wasn’t sure how extensive you wanted to get, but I thought I’d be prepared. Is it too much?” she asked, glancing at him worriedly.

“No, it’s fine. As long as we only use one or two of these.” He hefted a length of rope as wide as a fist and tried not to look nervous. “And we keep to the smaller ones.”

“Oh, right,” Brienne said. “Of course. I worried I might have gone a little overboard.”

“You’re fine,” Jaime said, kissing her anxiety away. “I have to admit, I’m not sure what the tarp is for. I thought we’d do it on the bed.”

“There’s not enough room on the bed,” Brienne said, frowning at him. “Even if we only do a few, you need flat space to appropriately lay everything out. The tarp was mostly to give us a platform to work from and show off our handiwork to others later.”

Jaime blinked. “We’re going to show others?”

“Why wouldn’t we? The patterns can get quite beautiful.”

Gods, did she really expect him to ejaculate all over the tarp like a painting? “Maybe we should talk about that part more,” Jaime said, hesitant. He didn’t want her to feel like she couldn’t talk about her kinks, too, but they needed to negotiate these things.

“We can keep it just for ourselves,” she said quickly. “I made an assumption I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry. I figured you’ve shown off much less appropriate things, this wouldn’t bother you.”

Jaime wasn’t sure he could imagine anything less appropriate than showing their friends a semen-based painting, but he was definitely sure he didn’t want to try.

“Let’s enjoy ourselves first and we can talk about sharing later,” Jaime said. Brienne nodded, looking relieved, and handed him a length of rope.

“Let’s start with this,” she said. “We’ll do a simple one.”

“Should I take my clothes off first?”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t need to, but it’s not like I’ve ever been able to stop you.”

He grinned and pulled off his shirt, felt her eyes trace down his chest, and decided they definitely needed more kissing first.

Jaime was thoroughly enjoying himself when Brienne gently pushed him away, her lips red and wet, her eyes bright.

“We have to stop or we’re never going to get to the ropes.”

“We could do the ropes a different day,” he said, leaning towards her again, and she laughed softly in his ear, a warm puff of air and sound.

“I went to all this work. Let’s at least do one or two.”

“If we must,” he murmured, but he pulled back and looked down at the rope still in his lap. “So do I wrap this around myself or do you do that?”

“No,” she said, her brow furrowing, “we’ll just do it in our own laps. Now, follow my directions.”

Jaime walked with growing anticipation as Brienne walked him through tying a simple knot, directing his hands when they were a little off-course, and then smiling proudly when his looked nearly like hers.

“That wasn’t too difficult, was it?”

“No, not at all.” Jaime stared at the knotted rope in his hand and then back at her. “Is this the kind of knot you’ll use on me?”

“Use on you for what?” she asked, reaching for two more lengths of rope and handing him one.

He grinned and lowered his voice. “To restrain me so you can have your way with me.”

Jaime was certain in all the time he’d known her, that he’d never seen her go this red before.

“Restrain you?” she said in a voice that was more a bird whistle than her regular voice. “You mean like…like…”

“Like bondage?” he said, rubbing his newly tied knot down her bare arm.

“You want me to- to tie you up?”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Like we talked about this morning.”

“You asked me if I wanted to learn new tricks with a rope.”

“And you said yes, you love tying knots. I thought we were flirting!”

“Jaime!” she gestured around at the tarp filled with ropes. “I thought you meant you wanted me to teach you the art of nautical knots!”

“Why would I want you to do _that_?” he asked and she could have been offended - probably should have, he would realize (much) later - but instead she dropped her chin to her chest and a laugh started low in her chest, bubbling up and eventually out like a soft, happy volcano.

“No wonder you looked so horrified when I talked about wanting to share our handiwork,” she managed between the laughs.

Jaime smirked and swarmed into her, pushing her down onto the tarp. “Ask me again later, I might change my mind,” he said, and then swallowed her indignant response with a kiss.


	23. (J/B - book canon AU: Speaking against skin + Locked in/trapped somewhere + Comfort)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Prompt Generator meme on tumblr: catherineflowers29 asked for A.13 Speaking against skin + B.11 Locked in/trapped somewhere + C.2 Comfort. This is a book canon prompt set-post ADWD. It's fairly dark and ends ambiguously (choose-your-own ending!). Warnings for major character injury and suggestion of one/both characters potentially dying.
> 
> _Brienne was not well._

Brienne was not well.

They had many other problems - no food, the last of their water frozen solid in their skins, the Others that had slaughtered or driven away the rest of their foraging party still lingering just outside of their hiding spot - but all Jaime could focus on was the ashen pallor of Brienne’s skin, the unsteady hitch of her breathing. She’d taken a hit in the skirmish, and Jaime had done what he could to patch it up, cramped as they were in the small space, barely even big enough to earn the right to be called a cave. She hadn’t said a word, just grimaced stoically as he’d fumbled with her clothes and his to cover the gash and hope for the best.

It was hard to find hope in this long and endless winter, though. If Jaime were an optimist, he might think the best scenario was one of their party made it back to Winterfell, a fresh group would be led to them to check for survivors, and he and Brienne would be able to survive that long. It was far more likely no one had made it, and they were no longer sending out scouts for missing people. People went missing every day now.

The real best case scenario was that they would die before the Others got to them.

Brienne trembled next to him, her body curled in on itself. Jaime shifted, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close without a word. It was foolish to be practically on top of each other in this space and pretend that they weren’t, that Jaime hadn’t been thinking of doing just this for days now as they waited and planned and tried not to die.

“‘M’sorry,” she mumbled, and Jaime pressed his forehead into the back of her neck.

“Whatever for, wench?”

“Dying.”

Jaime huffed, and her limp hair stirred against his lips. “Yes, very impolite of you. You better stop, then.”

She moved her head a little, a small shake of her head. “Can’t.”

He nudged her hair aside with his nose, pressed his mouth to the chilled flesh revealed there. She was even paler here. “I command you,” he said into her skin, as though that would make it so, as if he could breathe it into her blood. “Just as you ordered me to, once. And as usual I expect you to be even better at accomplishing it than I was. You will live, and in forty years I’ll tell our-” he hesitated, but her stillness was with intent now; she was listening closely. “Our children,” he said firmly, “when I’m old and dying and you’ve finally decided to let me go as you should have years past, I’ll tell them how it was I who saved you in the end. Then I’ll die before you can contradict me, stubborn woman.”

Brienne’s shoulders rocked a little in his arms, and Jaime felt her shake her head again, the skin brushing against his mouth, a kiss taken that he would have given her willingly.

He felt her chest expand, knew she was about to say something neither of them wanted to hear, not when immediate death was the most likely outcome of all of this.

“Hush,” he interrupted her. “Save your strength. You can berate me when we’re back at Winterfell.”

Jaime couldn’t decide if her relaxing back into his embrace was a sign of acceptance of his command, or her fate. 


	24. (J/B - mod AU: Hooking chin over shoulder + Kitchen + As a distraction)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Prompt Generator meme: Naomignome asked for A6. Hooking chin over shoulder + B10. Kitchen + C5. As a distraction. Modern AU, fluffy as heck. 
> 
> _“I didn’t realize you were so passionate about omelettes,” he said, smirking at the neatly arranged rows of condiments, cans, and tightly packed leftovers._
> 
> _“Maybe I’m just passionate about your omelettes,” she said, and he could feel her smile against his cheek._

“Where did you say the eggs were?”

“On the door.”

Jaime frowned into the fridge, staring intently at the door. “I don’t see a single egg. Were they laid by an invisible bird?” He started to close the fridge and Brienne’s hand grabbed the handle, holding it open. 

“Did I say the door?” she asked, poking her head around. “I meant the drawer.”

“Who puts eggs in the drawer?” he scoffed.

“I do. Just look, will you?”

The fridge started beeping, and her arm snaked around Jaime’s body, pressing the Alarm Off button.

“Here, why don’t you look and I’ll shred the cheese.”

“No!” she yelped, boxing him in entirely. Brienne hooked her chin over his shoulder, her cheek pressing against his, her front snug against his back. A warm happiness uncurled in his belly. “I’ll help you look,” she said. He could feel every flex of her jaw as she spoke.

“I didn’t realize you were so passionate about omelettes,” he said, smirking at the neatly arranged rows of condiments, cans, and tightly packed leftovers.

“Maybe I’m just passionate about _your_ omelettes,” she said, and he could feel her smile against his cheek.

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Brienne snorted, her body bumping against his. “Don’t turn this into a sex thing.”

“Why not?” he murmured, letting his head fall back against her shoulder. He turned his head and pressed his lips to the edge of her ear.

“Well,” she said, sighing a little. She wrapped her arm around his waist and moved them back a step to close the door. “Because we have company,” she said, and nudged his head to look through the now-revealed archway into the living room.

“SURPRISE!” yelled a shocking number of their friends and family, popping into view with balloons and party hats.


	25. (J/B - mod boxing AU: Sitting close enough to press legs together + Work + As a distraction)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Prompt Generator meme, scoundrels-in-love asked for: A12. Sitting close enough to press legs together + B14. Work + C5. As a distraction. This is a modern boxer AU that I'm probably going to expand into a full story later. 
> 
> _Brienne glowered at the floor. “You came over here to mock me?”_
> 
> _“I came over here to tell you that the first rule of boxing is you have to throw a punch.”_
> 
> _She stood again and he grabbed her glove. “Let me go,” she warned him._
> 
> _“I know who you are, Brienne Tarth.”_

Brienne pounded her gloves together, furious at herself as she climbed out of the ring and retreated to a bench at the back of the gym. She spit her mouthguard into one glove and then glared angrily down at her knees, still hearing the men’s hooting laughter.

“Some professional boxer,” one of them sneered. “She can’t even land one hit.”

 _That’s not true_ , she wanted to shout, but it had been just now. The man they’d put her up against had been bigger than her by a noticeable amount - broad and burly, an almost murderous look in his eyes when they’d touched gloves before the bout. In truth, Brienne had been terrified of getting hit by him, with the way he swung his meaty fists like he was aiming to crack her skull open with them. She’d come up through women’s boxing taking all kinds of hits, had done some semi-pro bouts against men that she’d both won and lost, but this had felt dangerous in a way she’d never experienced before.

It hurt, though, to know that the entire gym had watched her tryout for the last pro boxer sponsorship spot only to watch her utterly fail. Hot tears pressed for release, but Brienne fought them as fiercely as all her other opponents.

“Hey, kid,” a man nearby said, and she gathered her things, assuming she’d taken some old guard’s seat. When she stood, she chanced a look at him and saw a man only a little shorter than her, blonde hair shorn close to his head, arms folded over his muscular chest. He was older, by the lines around his eyes and carved into the corners of his mouth, but they looked drawn there more by weariness than years.

“I’m not a kid,” she said.

He rolled his eyes. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“Giving you your seat,” she mumbled.

“No need for that.” He gestured for her to sit again and she did, eying him warily. There wasn’t much room on the bench for two big people, and when he sat, too, she pulled her body into itself as much as she could.

“I don’t bite,” he said, grinning at her.

“What do you want?” she asked, ignoring him.

“I watched your fight. Though it wasn’t a fight so much as a game of dodgeball.” 

Brienne glowered at the floor. “You came over here to mock me?”

“I came over here to tell you that the first rule of boxing is you have to throw a punch.”

She stood again and he grabbed her glove. “Let me go,” she warned him.

“I know who you are, Brienne Tarth.” She looked more intently at him then, and when he tugged gently on her glove, she sat back down again. This time he pressed his leg against hers, and she looked down at his thigh; it was nearly as big and muscled as hers was. “I’ve seen a few of your fights. You’re good. Very good. I heard you were trying out for Tarly’s last spot and wanted to see you in person.”

“You did, and I lost.”

The man nodded. “You sucked,” he informed her with a cheerfulness that deflated any hurt. He wasn’t wrong. “But I know you’re better than that. They shouldn’t have put you up against the Mountain. That was dirty pool.”

“I have to be able to fight whoever ends up in front of me in the ring,” she said firmly. “No matter what he looks like.”

“I would have swung at the Mountain when I was your age, but I don’t think I would have done any better,” he said.

Brienne looked more closely at him, the calculating green eyes, the sharp smile, the right hand curled and mangled. She gasped and every part of his features tightened into something unpleasant.

“I don’t give autographs,” Jaime Lannister said and she couldn’t contain the disgusted grimace.

“I don’t want your autograph. Or your advice.”

“You want my sponsorship spot though.”

Brienne laughed, a high, startled bark that echoed in the rafters. “Are you serious?”

“Very. I’ve got my own gym, and I’ve been looking for the boxer to represent it. I want it to be you.”

“No way. Bad enough I’m a woman trying to get on the pro circuit. Being sponsored by Kingslayer will doom me.”

Jaime leaned back against the wall. “No sponsorship at all would be worse. Besides, I won’t just sponsor you, I’ll coach you, too.”

“With one hand?”

“I could do it with no hands if I had to,” he assured her.

Brienne looked at the ring where she’d been so soundly defeated by the Mountain, disqualified for not even attempting to fight back. The men had mostly scattered, though Tarly was talking to a handful of them, and one pointed towards her and the Kingslayer and they all laughed again.

“You don’t want to let them have the last laugh, do you?” Lannister said softly. He pressed his leg more firmly against hers, and it was warm and strong and distracting. “I won’t sign you up for life. Commit to at least training and a first fight, and then you can decide whether to continue.”

“Why?” she asked, meeting his stare. He furrowed his brow, confused. “Why me? Are you that desperate?”

“No,” he said and then gave a small, rueful laugh. “Well, maybe a little. But it would be easier to not sponsor anyone than to take a chance on you. I’m telling you, Tarth, I see how good you could you be. You already have the strength and the foundation. You just need some confidence and flare.”

“You killed a man in the ring, I don’t need that kind of flare.”

His mouth thinned into a tight line. “I did. And maybe that’s exactly what you need. If you want to win at this level, you can’t go dodging the whole time. You need someone who isn’t afraid to train your killer instinct, not just your right hook.” Jaime stood, dropping a business card into her glove. “It’s up to you, Tarth. Training starts next week, let me know by then.”

He nodded at her and then strode away, carrying the weight of everyone’s stares - and Brienne’s future - with him as he left.


	26. (J/B - mod office AU: Rub arms/back for warmth + Locked in/trapped somewhere + Selfishness)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Prompt Generator meme, pretty--thief asked for: A10. Rub arms/back for warmth + B11. Locked in/trapped somewhere + C13. Selfishness. This is a mod AU where they work in an office together. 
> 
> _“Rub my back,” Jaime whined, and Brienne gaped at him in disbelief._
> 
> _“You’re the one who got us stuck in here,_ you _rub_ my _back,” she said._

“Rub my back,” Jaime whined, and Brienne gaped at him in disbelief.

“You’re the one who got us stuck in here, _you_ rub _my_ back,” she said.

“You’re bigger than I am, you retain more heat,” he protested. “You’re being selfish by not sharing it.”

“I’m being selfless by not punching you in the stomach,” Brienne grumbled, rubbing her own arms more vigorously. She could think of many ways she would have liked to have Jaime asking her to rub any part of his body, but as a way to keep him from hypothermia because he’d gotten them trapped in the freezer at the cafeteria of their work was not on that list.

“I wish I’d never asked you to meet me here,” he said, glaring at her.

“I wish you hadn’t either!”

“At least we agree on _something_!”

They exchanged venomous stares, but he shuffled closer to where she was moving her feet to walk in place and try to keep her temperature up without sweating. She remembered all those survivalist shows she’d watched that said sweat could be deadly in freezing temperatures. They’d also said sharing body heat was an effective tactic, but she didn’t particularly feel like sharing anything with Jaime right now.

“Just a little,” he urged her and she turned her back on him in response.

“You’re acting like I meant for us to get stuck in here,” he said. “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know,” she told the far freezer wall. “Why did you ask to meet in the freezer in the first place?”

“I had gossip.”

Brienne looked back over her shoulder and he shrugged nonchalantly.

“I did. It’s about an executive, so I couldn’t chance anyone overhearing us.”

“Unless this executive is sleeping with multiple people that work for them, it was absolutely not worth it.”

Jaime gave her a knowing look and Brienne groaned. “I still don’t want to know,” she insisted. “Don’t tell me anything.”

“We have to report them.”

“Why don’t you report them? We have that Ethics line.”

Jaime scratched the back of his neck, shivered, and then hugged himself more tightly. “The tiny problem is that the executive might be very closely related to me.”

“Tyrion?” she asked, surprised. But Jaime shook his head and his face twisted into the strangest look of nerves and disappointment and resignation. “Oh gods. No. I am not going to report your sister.”

“You have to,” he said. “No one else will do it.”

“And again,” she said, unwrapping one arm from around her body long enough to gesture at him vehemently.

“You know those lines aren’t really anonymous,” Jaime informed her. “They’ll find out it’s me.”

“Why would it better if they discovered it was me?” she said, her voice far too high-pitched.

“Because everybody trusts you, Brienne! If I do it, they’ll think I’m just trying to get her kicked out so I can take over her division. That’s how Lannisters think.” Jaime’s voice was laced with the same disgust Brienne felt. “But they’ll listen to you. They’ll believe you’re doing it because it’s true. Brienne. Please.” He stepped forward and rubbed her arms, his hands bumping over her own where they were curled tightly around her own biceps. “Nice muscles under that suit jacket,” he murmured, pausing to squeeze a little with his strong hands, and Brienne suspected if all her blood wasn’t furiously trying to keep her trunk alive, she’d be blushing. Thank the gods for small miracles, she supposed.

Jaime looked at her with wide, puppydog eyes, eyes that were normally narrowed and green as a cat’s. His lips were just starting to turn from the pink they normally were, and she wondered if they should press their mouths together to share heat there, too.

Brienne shook her head abruptly. “Fine,” she said.

“You swear?”

“I swear. Although that won’t mean much if we die in here. You have to get us out of here first.”

“No problem,” Jaime said. He pulled out his phone and typed a swift text message while Brienne watched, open-mouthed. “There. Facilities should be here in five.”

“I hate you,” she growled.

“I know. But you wouldn’t break an oath you made on my deathbed, would you?”

“You weren’t dying!”

“I absolutely was,” he said, frowning. “If you hadn’t said yes soon, I might’ve started losing fingers and then I could have gotten some terrible infection and died of that. Besides,” he wiggled his right hand at her. “It would be a shame to have lost these babies. You don’t know what they’re capable of.”

Jaime grinned salaciously at her and when Facilities opened the door three minutes later, he was still coughing from where she’d socked him in the stomach.


	27. (J/B - mod college AU: Lap sitting + Beach + Stubbornness)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Prompt Generator meme, anonymous asked for: A8. Lap sitting + B2. Beach + C14. Stubbornness. This is mostly a whole bunch of Jaime being a failboat. 😄
> 
> _The problem was that it had taken her so long to get ready that there weren’t any good spots left. There weren’t really any spots at all, not unless he wanted to be sitting in someone’s lap. Which was when he spotted Brienne Tarth from his o-chem class, shoved under a too-small umbrella as she put suntan lotion on._
> 
> _“This way,” he told Cersei, bee-lining straight for Brienne._

The beach was crowded with people and their gear: towels, umbrellas, small barbecues, and various swimming floaties that mostly seemed to have been brought to collect sand. Jaime felt like he’d been brought for the same reason.

Cersei had dragged him here because, as she put it, “You attract so many women when you go out, and I want a piece of that.”

“Isn’t that a problem if _I’m_ attracting them and not you?”

Cersei had waved away what he thought had been a very solid argument. He’d had a long week and didn’t feel like going to the beach just to be ogled. “I don’t know why you of all people would assume everyone is straight,” she’d said and he hadn’t had a good comeback for that, so now he was here as some sort of Bisexual Beacon.

The problem was that it had taken her so long to get ready that there weren’t any good spots left. There weren’t really any spots at all, not unless he wanted to be sitting in someone’s lap. Which was when he spotted Brienne Tarth from his o-chem class, shoved under a too-small umbrella as she put suntan lotion on.

“This way,” he told Cersei, bee-lining straight for Brienne. She must have sensed his approach, because she looked up and when she saw it was him she immediately looked away again, her cheeks going pink. Jaime didn’t know why Brienne hated him so much, but she would at least make an afternoon of redirecting drooling women more interesting.

“Brienne!” he shouted before they were even close, waving his arm wildly so she couldn’t ignore him. He saw her broad shoulders heave with an enormous sigh and she gingerly lifted one big hand before studiously returning to her sunscreen application.

“Ugh, not her again,” Cersei complained. “You made us sit by her at that end-of-semester picnic, too. All she did was talk about being a doctor.” Jaime could easily imagine the impressive eyeroll Cersei was doing right now. “Going on and on about saving people and how she couldn’t be there for her mother so she wants to help others. No one is that selfless.”

“Brienne is,” Jaime said simply, and then they were there, and he dropped his stuff in the small patch of open sand. “Fancy meeting you here!” he said with a cheerful grin. “You’re not saving this space for anyone, are you?”

“Um, no, but-”

“Perfect.” Jaime flicked out his towel with a snap and then laid it down right up against hers. “Beach is packed today.”

“I’m sure there are better spots-”

“No, we checked. Walked the whole beach, didn’t we Cersei?” He didn’t wait for her response. “Anyway I haven’t seen you since the picnic, so I figured I’d come say hi. You remember Cersei?”

Brienne glanced past him and blanched a little. Jaime could only imagine what sort of look his twin was giving the hapless girl. “Hi,” Brienne said quietly.

“Glad to see you have sunscreen,” Jaime barreled on, flopping down to the towel. “I forgot mine. Can you put some on my back?” Jaime peeled off his tank top and chucked it to the side.

“Hey,” Cersei said, slightly muffled. He glanced and saw he’d accidentally hit her in the face.

But he was far more concerned with Brienne’s face, which was going several interesting and bright shades of red as her eyes strayed to his chest and then jerked back up to his face on repeat. Well. She may hate him, but she at least seemed to appreciate his body. _I can work with that_ , he thought. He turned and scooted back so he was basically sitting in her lap.

“What are you doing?” she squeaked.

“Waiting for your help. You wouldn’t let a fellow doctor-in-training burn, would you? Pretty sure that’s against the Hippocratic Oath.”

“I don’t think that covers sunburns,” Brienne muttered under her breath, but Jaime was close enough he could hear it over the noise of the beach. He also heard the cap open on her lotion bottle, and he grinned triumphantly at Cersei, who simply showcased a truly epic eyeroll in return.

“Are you a big beach-goer?” Jaime asked, striking up a conversation as she squeezed lotion onto his shoulders. It was a little cold and he shivered, but not nearly as hard as when she pressed her palms onto him the first time.

“I used to go more at home,” Brienne said in her deceptively soft voice, as she rubbed her deceptively gentle hands in smooth circles over his back.

“Go where?” Jaime asked. Gods, her palms were smooth except for the rasp of callouses. The contrast was hypnotic, as was the rhythm she was keeping.

“To the beach,” Brienne said like he might be an idiot, and Jaime was feeling a little idiotic, distracted as he was by her fingers now rubbing more lotion down the line of his back.

“I love the beach,” he said, and Cersei shut her eyes and slowly shook her head.

Brienne stopped touching him and Jaime was worried she was already done, but she squeezed more lotion onto his back and then started again. Jaime had never been so grateful for the wide span of his torso than at this moment. It was too quiet, though, and he knew Brienne wasn’t going to say anything first.

“What brings you here?” he blurted out, and her hands hesitated for a moment along the side of his ribs, and Jaime imagined her squeezing him so hard he couldn’t breathe.

“To the beach?”

“Yeah.”

Her hands picked up their pace again and Cersei was giving him the most pitying look he’d ever seen. “Well,” Brienne said slowly. “I guess the water?”

Jaime was going to have to dunk himself in the water if he kept this up. If he was lucky, maybe he’d drown and Brienne would come save him.

“What about you?” she said.

“Cersei wants me to attract women,” he answered truthfully, and Brienne yanked her hands away. Shit. “Not you,” he added hurriedly. “I meant beautiful women.”

Cersei dropped her head into her hand and Jaime could _feel_ the anger radiating off of Brienne at his back.

“I’m done,” she said sharply. “You can get up now.”

“No,” he said.

“No? You can’t just say no.”

“I just did.”

Brienne made some sort of aggravated growling noise, and then she shoved him out of her lap and was on her feet before he could form a protest.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“Swimming,” she said. “I don’t want to scare away any beautiful women for you.”

She stalked down to the water, all rippling muscles and luminous skin, and when she dove into the waves Jaime thought he might pass out from how quickly his blood rushed south.

“Wow,” Cersei said. She was watching Brienne, too, and Jaime suspected if she’d had a dick, she’d be similarly physically affected right now. “You really fucked that up.”

“Maybe a little,” Jaime admitted. He stood, brushing the sand off of his swim trunks. He could feel eyes tracking his direction, but none of them were Brienne’s. “But we only just got here. I’ve got plenty of time to make it up to her.”

“You might have the time, but do you have brain cells?”

Jaime flipped Cersei off over his shoulder as he strolled down to where Brienne was swimming, and wondered how long he could reasonably wait before he could ask her to put more sunscreen on him. This time, he would stay in her lap if he had to wrap himself around her like seaweed to do it.


	28. (J/B - mod space AU: Tracing fingers over skin + Outer space + Happiness)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Prompt Generator meme, anonymous asked for: A14. Tracing fingers over skin + B15. Outer space + C10. Happiness. This is a modern AU set in spaaaaaace. It's also pretty fluffy. 
> 
> _It was never fully quiet here on the ship. The low hum of the air recyclers, the deep-seated rumble of the engines even as they floated along, the occasional bird-like beep of systems as they ran through their constant tuning and monitoring - they were a small, constant symphony of noise, if a quiet one. But it had all mostly faded into the background now that they were months into the voyage, soothing in its way and only noticeable when something was off or different._
> 
> _Different like the sound of Jaime curled up tightly in Brienne’s sleeping pod with her, his breathing loud in her ear._

It was never fully quiet here on the ship. The low hum of the air recyclers, the deep-seated rumble of the engines even as they floated along, the occasional bird-like beep of systems as they ran through their constant tuning and monitoring - they were a small, constant symphony of noise, if a quiet one. But it had all mostly faded into the background now that they were months into the voyage, soothing in its way and only noticeable when something was off or different.

Different like the sound of Jaime curled up tightly in Brienne’s sleeping pod with her, his breathing loud in her ear.

They were fully clothed, the straps jury-rigged to hold them both in place. That had been Jaime’s idea; Brienne had been uncomfortable with messing with the regulation-sized restraints, but he’d been very convincing. Jaime was often very convincing and that was even before they’d started kissing.

She touched her lips, then her neck where he’d laughingly given her a “space hickey,” as he’d called it. And then her collarbone, where he’d made noises about how difficult it was making out in zero-gravity, and maybe they should strap themselves in instead.

Brienne was so tightly held in his arms now as he slept that she didn’t need the restraints. She felt safer, too, like somehow his embrace was stronger than WSA-approved metal and nylon.

She turned her head towards him, studied the way his face looked looser in sleep and without the pull of the earth below their feet. She turned her head the other way, craning her neck until she could look through the currently open door to one of the viewing windows. There was still nothing out there but darkness, half-way from here to the space station that was their destination. They were reinforcements for the team already there, just the two of them and a huge bay full of supplies. The first two-person space-faring team in WSA history. There had been a lot of joking comments about sending a man and woman alone, until the public had seen who the man and woman were, and then there’d been a lot more ugly comments that Brienne had done her best to ignore.

They’d trained together for this mission, had spent months earth-side together already to test their compatibility, and when they’d emerged from their cocoon having argued to their limit until they’d reached a comfortable working partnership, WSA had deemed them fit and shot them into space.

Even Brienne wouldn’t have bet they’d end up here, with Jaime nuzzling into her neck and his fingers lightly stroking her arms.

He was awake now, watching her closely. “Good space morning,” he said. His tendency to put ‘space’ in front of everything had gone from funny to annoying to endearing.

“Not yet. The alarm hasn’t gone off.”

“That’s good news,” Jaime said, smiling. “That means we have time for more space kisses before they want a report on our bowel movements.”

Brienne snorted. “That’s very romantic.”

“What could be more romantic than kissing among the very stars themselves? You need to balance it out or it’ll just go to your head.”

She licked her lips and pulled their bodies together so she could kiss him to a stop again.

“Good thing the space station has gravity,” he mused when they floated back apart a little in rebound. “Space sex seems far too difficult.”

Brienne flushed. “Just don’t call it space sex when we actually do it,” she said, not quite able to meet his eyes.

Jaime’s arms tightened around her. “I promise. This is going to blow every mile high club member away,” he said, and she shoved him enough they both stretched to the end of the straps. Jaime laughed, another new sound in their small little space symphony, and her favorite one yet. 


	29. (J/B - show canon: Hugging + The afterlife + Habit)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Prompt Generator meme, anonymous asked for: A7. Hugging + B15. The afterlife + C8. Habit. Set post-season 8 of the show. Warnings: Jaime's for-real dead, Brienne is grieving, this addresses both head-on. It's sad.

There had been much Brienne missed after Jaime left; some things she would have expected having shared quarters with him for a month, but many she had not. What she missed the most, she discovered as the dark winter melted so very slowly into an uncaring spring, were the hugs.

She had never been someone to embrace others easily, or to be someone for whom it was easy for others to embrace first, but that had not stopped Jaime. After their first night together, he had started touching her in public. Nowhere he knew she’d be embarrassed or unwilling, either in setting or on her body, but small touches, slowly easing her into not flinching every time it happened. It took far less time than she would have expected, and whether that was because he was so persistent or because she trusted him so implicitly, she couldn’t say. 

But once they could walk the courtyards together with his hand at her back, once she started touching him first as well, he moved on to wrapping her in one arm. It happened in their bed before that, of course - and on their floor in front of the fire, and once in the armoury - but the first time they were sitting at dinner with Pod, and Jaime slid his arm around her waist, Brienne had stiffened immediately.

Jaime and Pod had continued chatting as though nothing was out of the ordinary. No one came rushing up to tell her she was being improper. Sansa was not glaring at either of them even when she looked their way and saw Jaime’s arm obvious as a gash at Brienne’s waist. The world just… continued.

So Brienne continued with it, an act she had always been good at, an ability that served her well now in the emptiness of Jaime’s death.

Being selected as Lady Commander of King Brandon’s Kingsguard was an honor, she knew that, but it did not make the sorrow or the loneliness any easier to bear in the daylight. Even when she and Pod crossed paths in the halls of the rebuilding Red Keep, he would smile at her, always a little sadness to it, a sadness she alone seemed to engender.

But at nighttime, the grief she could more easily ignore during the day pressed against the dim light of the candles in her room, an unwelcome visitor. It had been that way since Jaime had left, except for one night alone. 

It had been a few weeks after Jaime had left, and the news of the destruction of King’s Landing, the bodies that had been found, had confirmed what Brienne had known would happen the night he rode away. For a man so good at living, he had never felt worthy of it. The failure to convince him he was would always be Brienne’s greatest regret.

When she collapsed on her bed one night, exhausted - though in those early weeks she was always tired, from her duties to Sansa and the weight of her grief and the fight to maintain control - she had not even removed her cloak before she was asleep. But instead of utter blackness or reliving old memories or imagining what those last days had been like for Jaime, Brienne was somewhere calm and bright. The shores of Tarth, perhaps, though it was more a feeling than a place.

And there, brighter than anything else, was Jaime. Dark-haired and bearded, dressed in casual clothes as when they’d spent those weeks in King’s Landing years past. But smiling so beautifully he was glowing like the sun. She had seen that smile only in Winterfell before, mostly in the glow of firelight, infrequent and treasured all the more for it.

There were no words between them; instead he stepped forward and wrapped her in his arms - _I’m strong enough_ , he’d told her with cruelty once, but he had proven it true with kindness, that he was strong enough to patiently hold her while she crumbled in his embrace.

Brienne had woken with tears drying on her cheeks, bereft and sad, but feeling his arms still in the folds of the cloak around her body. She’d hurried mindlessly through that day, until night approached with eagerness and anxiousness.

There had been no Jaime in her dreams again, and Brienne had continued.

It wasn’t often cold enough to wear her cloak in King’s Landing, but today a chill storm had come through and Brienne had business in the city itself. On her return to the Keep, she’d been waylaid for a conversation by Bronn, had checked in with Podrick, and was only now dragging her weary body to the Commander’s quarters. She intended only to lay for a moment on the bed to rest, but swiftly fell asleep instead.

Once more, as months past, there was Jaime. He looked worried when she first met his gaze, but his brow smoothed with the beaming happiness of his smile, and this time she met him halfway. Even when she tried to speak, she couldn’t, but she heard all of his words in the way he buried his face into the curve of her neck. She hoped he heard hers when she combed her fingers through his hair. All the things they couldn’t say were loud in the beat of their hearts. When she woke, she was crying again, but the knot in her chest felt looser, the threads finally starting to come apart from where they’d been twisted.

Brienne began to fall asleep in the cloak on purpose, and every time she did, Jaime was there, waiting for her. They would hold each other until she woke, and each time the sunrise hurt a little less.

Life continued.

When she passed Podrick in the halls, he would smile at her, but his eyes were hopeful now. When she sat at the Council meetings, she could look at Tyrion directly. When she dreamed of Jaime, she no longer woke up crying.

A year after the news of Jaime’s death had winged its way to Winterfell, Brienne held the cloak in her hands as she readied for bed, and knew this would be the last time. 

He seemed to know it, too, greeting her with a small, knowing smile. She had wanted him to live, and he wanted the same for her. Continuing was passive acceptance; living was a choice, one that Brienne was ready to make.

They embraced each other once more, the way she’d wished she could have before he’d gone off to die. She would remember the feel of his arms around her, of his body in her own grip, for the rest of her life.

This time, so quietly she thought perhaps she imagined it, she heard his whispered, “I’m sorry.”

_I know_ , she thought, though it was nonetheless healing to hear. And then he kissed her, and then he was gone, and she was awake and alone in her room and the sun was starting to rise.

It was going to be a beautiful day.


	30. (J/B - modern AU: follow-on to Petrichor; they get a second cat)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked: "After the events of “Petrichor,” do they get a Rohanne or Egg for Dunk?"
> 
> This is a follow-on to my fic, [Petrichor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26046490/chapters/63341557), where Jaime and Brienne are first living in parallel universes, only able to see and speak to each other through a mirror. Spoilers for that here, obviously, if you care. This is all sweetness. I needed it, after the US news of last night.

“We should get another cat,” Jaime said one night when they were on their new couch in their new apartment.

They’d decided to move out of the old one, just in case. It had been slightly over a year since they’d been brought together into the same world, and after the anniversary had passed they’d both breathed a sigh of relief, but still. Neither of them wanted to tempt any fates by staying there.

Dunc was sitting on Jaime’s lap tonight, though with Jaime and Brienne’s legs tangled together on the couch he was sort of claiming both of them at once.

“Don’t you think one dumb cat is enough?” Brienne asked, barely looking up from the book she was reading.

“No,” he said, stroking Dunc’s soft fur. “There’s two of us, what if we both need cat snugglies at the same time.”

Brienne looked up, her brows raised. “Did you just say _cat snugglies_?”

“What about when we both leave the house and Duncan is all alone, then?” he said, ignoring her. “He needs a girlfriend.”

“Jaime, he’s neutered, and we’re not running a cat matchmaking program.”

“What about a brother, then? We both have brothers, and we like them.”

They’d discovered that in this world, Brienne’s entire family was still alive - and so was Jaime’s. The shock of that, the odd grief they’d had to relive and the joy they’d both felt guilty about, had taken them months to overcome, but at least they’d been able to do it together.

Brienne pursed her lips. “Duncan probably does get lonely when we go to work,” she said, moving her foot to stroke Dunc’s face with her toes. He leaned into it, and Jaime felt a purr rumbling through his legs. “Alright, for Duncan.”

“Great,” Jaime said, beaming. “We’ll go to the shelter this weekend.”

* * *

“This might have been a mistake,” Jaime said, as Duncan growled in a low threatening voice from his carrier. The kitten they’d brought home toddled curiously out of his own carrier, sniffing the air.

“Give him time, it’s been ten seconds.” Brienne said. “He really is bald, isn’t he?” she marveled, staring at their new pet. They’d looked at a ton of cats, and then they’d found this one, who’d been abandoned in a ditch with such a bad case of ringworm all the fur on his head was gone. But he’d butted his bald little head against the door of his cage and meowed fiercely and Brienne had been hooked. Jaime had agreed with her immediately.

“He looks like an egg,” Jaime said with a laugh.

“That’s what we should call him.”

“ _Egg?_ ”

Brienne brushed a finger down the patchy fur of his back, and he meowed sharply, a tiny door-hinge squeak of a noise. “Yep. Egg.” Egg pressed his nose in-between the wires of Dunc’s carrier and the other cat scrambled backward i terror.

“Your cat is a coward,” Jaime said dryly.

“He’s _our_ cat now,” she said, and Jaime reached out and took her hand, kissing her fingertips. They had families and their jobs and their new home and two cats and each other. Brienne knew how precious even a minute of having all of this - any of this - was, and she was not going to take it for granted. She curled her hand into Jaime’s and they sat there, holding hands, while their two cats slowly became friends.


	31. Brienne - post-show canon, a dark path

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set post-season 8, where Jaime is dead, Brienne is Commander of Bran's Kingsguard, and Bran is slowly descending into madness. Dark and not really a happy ending. Warnings for character death (not Brienne).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this idea and it wouldn't leave me alone so I'm putting it here.

The worst moments of Brienne's life had always been those where all she could do was watch and do nothing: Renly's death, Sansa's candle, Jaime's leaving. Now she watches over King Brandon Stark as he slowly goes insane.

* * *

She is a just and honorable Lady Commander. She has a friend in Podrick and a mission in the Kingsguard and a lover in one of the minor house knights that arrived in King's Landing, hoping for favor. He tells her he lingers primarily to see her. She ignores him for a year and then she sleeps with him. She has slept with a knight before.

* * *

Brienne talks to her sword. She doesn't do it around others, and she doesn't expect an answer, it simply centers her to rest her palm on the lion's head of Oathkeeper and work out a particularly thorny problem. There are a thousand thorny problems as Lady Commander of a mad king. She does not believe she's going mad, herself, though sometimes she imagines she hears Jaime talking back.

* * *

King Bran finds the dragon. He brings it to King's Landing through the power of his mind and forces his Kingsguard to go with him to greet it. Brienne's never been more terrified in a life filled with terror. It doesn't eat any of them and she wonders what possessed Jaime to ride straight for a beast such as this.

* * *

“If they won't bend the knee,” King Bran says of the rebelling Iron Islands and Dorne, “then I'll burn them all.” 

Brienne shivers.

* * *

King Bran makes the Kingsguard feed the dragon, Drogon. The commoners bring sacrifices of livestock as fealty and then the Kingsguard take turns leading the bleating, trembling animals to their deaths in the dragonpit. 

“Might we kill them first, Your Grace?” Brienne asks one day, sick of the sounds of animal terror. 

“Only if you want Drogon to eat you instead,” he says, serious and still. 

She does not ask again.

* * *

There is a parley with the Dornish and the Iron Fleet and Queen Sansa. The revolt is on the edge of exploding and something must be done before more kingdoms demand their independence. Brienne thinks they should be allowed to have it, but her only authority is in watching. 

King Bran is in his chair, alone with Brienne in the middle of the throne room, when he whispers aloud his plan to make the others see reason. He doesn't seem to know she's even there. 

“Drogon will convince them,” he says to the empty air in front of him. “ _We_ will convince them.”

“How, my King?” Brienne asks and Bran slowly turns his head her way, in the swooping arc that the dragon uses as it surveys the livestock that the Kingsguard bring it. 

“The way all rulers must: with fire and blood.”

* * *

Brienne stabs him through the heart three days later, just before he gives Drogon the command to begin burning the faraway capitals full of sleeping innocents. The parley had been successful, but the king hasn't slept and instead whispers of punishment for crimes not yet committed. 

He does not seem surprised when he looks down at the Valyrian steel in his chest. For a moment, she thinks he'll say something and she hopes he damns her for her betrayal. But he gurgles and blood drips from his mouth before he slumps in the chair. 

She thinks of Jaime, of the decision he made, and she undoes her cloak and leaves it on the floor. Oathkeeper she wipes off and sheathes. There is no throne to sit on here, so she stands and rests her palm on her sword and waits for her punishment.

* * *

Another Stark finds the kingslayer. This time, it is Arya. Brienne hadn't known she was here, but she's not surprised. 

“You killed my brother,” Arya accuses. 

Brienne thinks of Jaime. “It had to be done,” she says, and lays out her case. There are no hard feelings between her and Arya, no retribution or blood lost between their families. Brienne has no pride to hold onto. She has done the deed when it needed doing, and she would do it again to save hundreds of thousands, to stop the man she's spent all this time watching descend into darkness.

Her skin is sweaty and clammy nonetheless. 

“Go,” Arya says, holding out a coin. “To Braavos. To the Faceless Men. They will take you in, with this.” 

“No. I will face my punishment here.”

Arya is so expressionless Brienne wonders if it's truly her face she sees. “They might simply kill you,” she says. 

“Then I will die with honor.” 

“You broke your oath,” Arya sneers. 

“No,” Brienne says, gripping Oathkeeper. “I have kept my oath to the innocent.”

Arya circles around her, examining Brienne from every angle before she stops in front of her again. “How many innocents will die because you killed a king who has no heirs?” 

Brienne frowns down at the other woman. She wonders if Arya wants her to name Arya as the new Queen, but that feels no less dangerous than Bran had been. Brienne tightens her grip on Oathkeeper. “Lord Tyrion, as Hand, may rule with the Small Council until an appropriate replacement has been selected.”

“You think they will wait? All the grasping, greedy lords who hover here like ants in honey?” Arya tilts her head and smiles. “You must take it.”

Brienne gasps in horror. “No. I-- I cannot.” 

Arya nods to herself, as though she's come to a decision and now they must move on. “It will be your punishment, Lady Commander. Fitting, don't you think?”

* * *

She is a just and honorable Queen. Podrick is her Lord Commander and the minor knight is her consort and she struggles to trust her Small Council with the duties of running the kingdoms. Dorne and the Iron Islands are free; the Stormlands make noise about striking out on their own as well. Brienne fights the forces of chaos and boredom at every step. 

Her throne is made of Tarth marble, with a cushion sent from Dorne and a pelt from the North. Drogon, gone rogue once more, is on the other side of the world and Brienne talks to her sword about what she might do if he comes back. 

They call her Queen Brienne the Kingslayer, and every time she thinks of Jaime. 

It is a fitting punishment, indeed.


End file.
